LOCAL GOVERNMENT Vs. SITRYA ARJUNA MAHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application by the Local Government for enhancement of the sentence of transportation for life to one of death in the case of Sitria son of Arjuna Mahar, who was convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge, Yeotmal, under Section 302, I. P. C., of the murder of his three children. The learned Counsel who appeared for the non-applicant Sitria did not show any cause against the conviction, but contented himself by showing reasons why sentence of death should not be passed. We have considered the appeal made by Sitria and are of opinion that there is no reasonable doubt that his conviction was correct and we have dismissed the appeal by a separate judgment. The only question therefore to be determined is whether there are sufficient reasons for enhancing the sentence or not.

(2.) THE facts may be briefly stated as follows. Sitria is a labourer who lived at a village called Ratnapur in the Wardha District near the river, which forms the boundary between the Central Provinces and Berar. He was employed by Krishna Patel, but some months prior to his arrest he lost his employment and it would seem that he was out of work at the time. His wife Mt. Tulsi was working as a labourer. They had eight children of whom six were alive. Sitria appears to have suspected the fidelity of his wife and thought that she was on terms of criminal intimacy with his own uncle Vithu. On that account he left Ratnapur and lived by himself for about two months at a village called Ganeshpur, about four miles from Ratnapur. Subsequently however he returned to Ratnapur and was living with his wife. On Saturday the 24th December his wife Tulsi went out to work early in the morning. Sitria left the house some time that clay with four of the children, Shama, Sadia, Vithi and Champi. In the afternoon he reached the Wardha river near monza Wandli and drowned three of the children in the river, the two girls Vithi and Champi and the boy Sadia. It would appear from the evidence that the elder boy Shama was also thrown into the river, but managed to save himself. After that Sitria went to the village of Wandli and asked for the house of Amritrao patel, and whilst he was there the boy Shama came, wet and in a muddy condition, and was taken to the house of Ramrao patel. His father Sitria, hearing of his arrival went there and Shama was evidently terrified at seeing his father. After questioning Sitria a messenger was sent to Ratnapur for information about him and his children, and on the following day Sitria took out the bodies of two of the children from the river, and the third body was recovered on the next day. Sitria admitted to Ramrao patel that he had drowned his children.

(3.) ON the other hand, there is some corroboration of Sitria's own story that when he reached the river his children asked him for food in the fact that some fried gram was found on the bank of the river near the spot where the children were drowned. We are of opinion, then, that the motive for the act cannot be definitely established. It may have been due to revenge, or it may have been due to the fact that Sitria was in impoverished circumstances and that he could not support his children, or again it may have been due to some mental derangement. The plea of insanity was no doubt rightly rejected by the Additional Sessions Judge, as the medical evidence of the Civil Surgeon has clearly proved that Sitria was in his right mind at the time of the trial. At the same time there is some evidence that he was not quite normal, and such a man brooding over a real or imaginary grievance might very likely commit a crime of this nature. We have been referred by the learned Counsel who appeared for the non-applicant to the decision in Emperor v. Tincouri Dhopi AIR 1923 Cal 460 where it has been held that in a case where there is practically no evidence of motive, and looking to the wanton way in which the murder was committed, it should be inferred that the accused, though not insane, was at any rate suffering from severe mental derangement at the time. Without going so far in the present case we are inclined to think that there may have been some mental derangement. For a father to kill his three young children is certainly a most unnatural act, and in this case where no clear motive can be shown, we think that at any rate some mental derangement should be inferred.