EMPEROR Vs. MTDHIRAJIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal of some little interest. The appellant is a young woman of 20 who was tried for murder by the Sessions Judge of Benares and who was tried at the same time for attempted suicide by a jury. The result of the trial by the Sessions Judge with the aid of his assessors-who were of course the same people who constituted the jury-was that he convicted the appellant of murder under Section 302, I.P.C. The result of the trial for attempted suicide by the jury was that she was found not guilty. The learned Judge, as logically he was bound to do, was unable to agree with the verdict of not guilty upon the charge of attempted suicide and he has therefore referred the case to us under Section 307, Criminal P.C., with the recommendation that the jury's verdict should be set aside and that the appellant should be convicted under Section 309, I.P.C., as well as under Section 302. In this way we have before us the appellant's own appeal against her conviction and sentence under Section 302, I.P.C., and the learned Sessions Judge's reference recommending us to set aside the verdict of the jury and to substitute a conviction upon the charge of attempted suicide as well.

(2.) We need hardly say that this is one of those cases common in these provinces in which a young woman with her baby in her arms had jumped or fallen down a well. The facts of the case are comparatively simple. Mt. Dhirajia is a young woman married to a man named Jhagga. They had a six months old baby. They lived together in the village and we can accept it as a fact from the evidence that the husband did not treat his wife very well. We find as a fact that on the day in question there had been a quarrel between the husband and wife and that the husband Jhagga had uttered threats against his wife that he would beat her. There is more than a hint in the evidence that the wife desired to go to visit her parents at their village of Bhagatua and that the husband, as husbands sometimes do, objected to his wife going to her parents. Late that night Jhagga woke up and found his wife and the baby missing. He went out in pursuit of them and when he reached a point close to the railway line he saw her making her way along the path. When she heard him coming after her Mt. Dhirajia turned round in a panic, ran a little distance with the baby girl in her arms and then either jumped or fell into an open well which was at some little distance from the path. It is important to observe that obviously she did this in panic because we have the clearest possible evidence that she looked behind her and was evidently running away from her husband. The result was, to put it briefly, that the little child died while the woman was eventually rescued and suffered little or no injury. Upon these facts Mt. Dhirajia was, as we have said, charged with the murder of her baby and with an attempt to commit suicide herself. At that stage it is desirable that we should look at her own statements. She has put forward her version of the affair on three separate occasions: first by a statement in the nature of a confession; secondly, before the committing Magistrate, and thirdly in the Court of the Sessions Judge. The first two of these are identical and we need only, therefore, actually discuss the one before the Magistrate. She was asked: Did you on 9 August 1939 at about sunrise jump into the well at Sultanpur in order to commit suicide?

(3.) This was her answer: There had been a quarrel in my house for three or four days. My husband threatened to beat me. Thereupon I fled away. He followed me. When I saw my husband coming after me, I through fear jumped into the well.