BONDA KUI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, Bonda Kui, aged about fifty, has been convicted by the learned Additional Sessions Judge of Manbhum-Singhbhum for an offence under Section 804, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to six years rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) On the night of 15 November 1940, the appellant and her niece were the sole residents of the house in Purnapani, the male residents being away at their khalihans. In the middle of the night, the appellant saw a form, apparently a human form dancing absolutely naked with a broom-stick tied on one side and a torn mat round the waist. The appellant, taking this form to be an evil spirit or a thing which eats up human beings took off her own clothes and with repeated blows by a hatchet felled the thing to the ground. Upon a closer investigation she discovered that she had killed this being. She immediately informed her niece, Gurubari Kui, who states in her evidence that the appellant told her that she had killed an evil spirit or a witch or something and she was asked to see it. The appellant and her niece found the corpse in the angan of the house. At the suggestion of the niece the Munda was informed who came and saw that a human being had been killed. The deceased was recognised later on as the wife of a brother of the appellant's husband; she was aged about fifty five.

(3.) The only evidence in the case is the statements made by the appellant from time to time either to her niece or in the Committing Magistrate's Court or in the Court of the learned Sessions Judge. The appellant all along has maintained that she did not take the unfortunate deceased to be a human being at all but thought that it was something which eats up human beings. In these circumstances the learned Sessions Judge thought that the appellant was not protected by the provisions of Section 79, Indian Penal Code, and has convicted her for the offence under Section 304, Indian Penal Code. Having regard, however, to the state of the society to which the appellant belongs, the learned Sessions Judge thought that the appellant was a superstitious woman and she in the height of her superstition believed that she was justified in killing the witch. Accordingly the learned Judge has imposed upon her a sentence of six years rigorous imprisonment only.