EMPEROR Vs. SWARNAMOYEE BISWAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference under Section 307 of the Criminal Procedure Code by the Sessions Judge of Burdwan who, not agreeing with a unanimous verdict of "not guilty", of the Jury, has submitted the case to us for our consideration.

(2.) The accused Swarnamoyee Biswas is a young Indian Christian girl aged 15 years. She stands charged under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code with the murder of her husband, Sampson, to whom it is alleged she administered strychnine.

(3.) Swarnamoyee is an orphan brought up and educated by Missionaries in Calcutta. The deceased was also an orphan brought up by Missionaries. He came from Mozufferpore to Burdwan, and was in the employ of the Reverend Mr. P.N. Sirkar at Burdwan as cook. He was illiterate. The girl came from Calcutta to Asansol and took a teacher s post in the Methodist Episcopalian Mission School there. The Missionaries arranged to marry the two. They were married on the 2nd November 1912 and came to Burdwan. Within a day or two of the marriage Sampson fell ill and had to go to hospital. Swarnamoyee then took up a teachers post in a Mission School at Burdwan, but not liking the place she returned to Asansol where she again became a teacher in the Methodist School. Sampson had remained sometime in the hospital when Swarnamoyee wrote to him to come to Asansol, and asked Mr. Byers, the head of the Vernacular Department of the Mission, to give him some sort of an appointment. Sampson came to Asansol and stayed for a few days in the bungalow of Mr. Byers, but grew worse. He was then told to go to hospital but he preferred not to do so, and on the 27th or 28th December, came to Budhadanga Mission house under the charge of Keshab Baboo, a subordinate of Mr. Byers. Swarnamoyee, who was living in the Widow s Home near by, was sent for to nurse her husband, and she accordingly came to occupy the same room with him in the Budhadanga Mission compound. Swarnamoyee used to get her meals supplied to her from the Widow s Home, while Sampson s invalid diet used to be supplied from the house of Keshab Baboo.