ALIMJAN BIBI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The trial out of which this appeal has arisen was one of arsenic poisoning. Six persons were originally brought before a Magistrate and accused of being concerned in the death of a man called Keramat Ali who has been described both by the Magistrate and by the Judge presiding at the Sessions as a man who was a simpleton or almost half-witted. It appears that his wife, one of the accused by the name of Alimjan Bibi, had an intrigue with a neighbour, also one of the accused by the name of Abdul Ali. These two tried to trick the husband into living all three together and made him some kind of a bogus offer for sharing their property. Somehow or other it appears that Abdul Ali and the wife did get hold of some property and then doubtless the husband's relative woke up to the position and he resisted the efforts of his wife and her lover and went off to live by himself. The prosecution story was that subsequently some cakes were made up into which arsenic had been introduced. This was done, it is said, by the mother of another of the accused by the name of Ledu. Mysteriously enough this old woman had disappeared and she was not on her trial. Ledu and the accused Fazal induced the simple minded husband to come along to Ledu's hut where there were gathered together all the accused in this case and the cakes were administered to Keramat by his own wife if she could be called his wife by then. He swallowed some of the cakes and then appears to have been rushed out of the hut towards the hut which he was occupying. On the way he was seized with violent convulsions and was left by the side of the road by the accused Ledu who had taken him away.

(2.) Unfortunately for these people there was present, at the time the cakes were being eaten, his daughter who gave evidence at the trial. The jury seem to have believed her evidence. She does not seem to have been upset in cross-examination and she was supported by the evidence of the doctor who held the post-mortem examination and discovered arsenic in the internal organs of Keramat. No witnesses were called for the defence. Other persons gave evidence with regard to Keramat Ali's accusations after he had his meal. All this does not seem to be a very difficult case, but it has been made very difficult by the way in which the prosecution had been permitted to present their case to the Court. Instead of making a straightforward case of murder and abetment of murder, by way of trying to be very clever, at least I suppose that is the only reason that actuated the Public Prosecutor or whoever he was, they have introduced the inevitable conspiracy charge under Section 120-B and just to make it even more difficult for the jury, in the case of three out of the five accused they have thrown in an abduction charge as a kind of make-weight, the abduction no doubt being the inducement which Ledu, Fazal, and a man called Mujaffar used, to get Keramat to the party where the poison cakes had been prepared. I ought to have said that there was another man charged before the committing Magistrate, but he was acquitted and as a result of this jury trial the accused Mujaffar was acquitted. Abdul Ali, the wife's lover, was convicted under Section 302 and Section 120-B, conspiracy for poisoning and he was sentenced to transportation for life. So was the accused Ledu and the accused Fazal. Both of them have been convicted of abduction and sentenced to transportation for life. As to the wife who, according to the prosecution evidence, was certainly the co-murderess of Keramat Ali with the old woman who is absconding, she was convicted of conspiracy to murder, but not of murder and has been sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment, a sentence which I should have thought was illegal.

(3.) Turning to the charge with which the learned Judge favoured the jury, on the whole it cannot be said to be at all unfavourable to the accused. If anything, it was rather inclining towards a lenient view of the whole case as is illustrated by the manner in which he handled the sentences and there is the usual padding about of proof, not proof and disproof, and he also indulges in something which, I think, he must have got from a book, and I know my learned brother thinks that too when he tells the jury that "the evidence is of three kinds: oral, documentary and circumstantial; circumstantial evidence is more reliable, documentary evidence less reliable, and oral evidence the least reliable." What all that means it is very difficult to understand, when it is used before a jury of laymen for the purpose of assisting them to try a case, where, as far as I can see, there is no documentary evidence at all and no circumstantial evidence either. This is one of those cases in which the charge, in my opinion, is so unhelpful to the jury that the Appellate Court whilst trying to follow as best they can the jury's decision on the facts which always ought to be followed, must be dealt with by us by way of putting matters right as far as we are able. It will be noted that certainly the most important criminal of the four who have been convicted received the least sentence, why I cannot conceive. There does not seem to be any real evidence against Abdul Ali and Abdul Ali ought, in my view, to have been acquitted.