The Madras High Court has suspended the life sentence imposed by a trial court on a 28-year-old woman convicted for having killed her nine-year-old daughter by administering insecticide. The convict had also attempted suicide because of her inability to repay a loan obtained through a women self help group (SHG).
A Division Bench of Justices S.S. Sundar and Sunder Mohan suspended the punishment after observing that they do not find any intention on the part of the convict to murder her daughter and hence she ought not to have been convicted by the sessions court under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
Pointing out that life sentence was the minimum punishment under Section 302, the judges said, the convict, who had committed the crime due to frustration, could at best be convicted under Section 304 part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) which does not prescribe any minimum punishment.
Her counsel V.R. Kamalanathan brought it to the notice of the Bench that it was a heatrending case since the convict’s husband, who had lodged the complaint against her after the crime in 2020, had died subsequently due to the trauma. Further, the woman had two more children who were aged seven and one at the time of the crime.
He told the judges that the woman was under incarceration since her conviction by a sessions court in Kallakurichi on September 22, 2022 and the trial court, itself, had ordered that her two surviving children must be taken care at a government home if none of the relatives come forward to take care of them.
The sessions court had found her guilty of Section 309 (attempt to commit suicide) too of the IPC and sentenced her to undergo one year impirsonment for it along with the life sentence imposed under Section 302. She was also imposed with a total fine of ₹15,000 for both the offences and ordered to undergo six more months of imprisonment in default.
According to the prosecution, the convict had been pestering her husband, employed as an earth mover operator, to settle the loan she had taken from the SHG. On September 8, 2020, he left for work stating that the loan could be settled after he receives his wages. Minutes after his departure, she made the eldest child consume insecticide and she too drank it.
Though there was no eye witness to the crime and the convict denied any kind of involvement whatsoever in the death of her daughter, the prosecution established its case through circumstantial evidence. It relied primarily on the testimonies of the neighbours who had rushed the child to a government hospital where she was declared dead.
On taking note that the woman had administered poison only to the eldest child and not to the seven-year-old boy and one-year-old girl, the trial court had concluded that there was a clear intention to murder the nine-year-old girl alone since the latter was very dear to the complainant who was reluctant to settle the loan.
“The convict must have killed only the eldest child knowing well that her death would shatter her husband,” the trial court had concluded in its September 22, 2022 verdict which had now been challenged before the High Court along with a sub application for suspension for sentence until the disposal of the appeal.
(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104, Tele-MANAS 14416. and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050)
