In a recent judgment, the Madras High Court set aside the sentence of life imprisonment on a woman charged with the murder of her minor daughter under Section 302 of the IPC.
Due to a quarrel, the mother set her daughter on fire due to which the daughter succumbed to death within 4 months of the incident. The court found that this cannot be covered under Section 302 since the intent to murder was missing.
Brief Facts:
The prosecution story is that the deceased Mariselvi was 13 years old at the time of the incident and was not good in studies. Her parents admitted her in Government Aided Residential School in Koviplatti, to pursue her studies. However, since she was least interested in studies, she returned home on 11.06.2012 in the midnight on having escaped from the hostel without informing the Warden. On 12.06.2012, the appellant chided her for running away from the hostel and not pursuing her studies. This appeared to trigger a quarrel between the appellant and her daughter in which, the appellant is alleged to have angrily thrown kerosene on the daughter and lighted. This took place around 7.00 a.m., on 12.06.2012. At this time, P.W.1 was fast asleep. On hearing the deceased hollering, P.W.1 woke up and immediately carried Mariselvi to the Government Hospital, Kovilpatti, where she was admitted as inpatient. The Wound Certificate shows that she has suffered 50% burns.
Observations of the Court:
Taking all the facts into consideration, the judges opined that they cannot sustain the conviction of the appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC and instead, the conviction can be one under Section 304(1) IPC. The reasons for the same was that initially the case was registered for the offence under Section 307 of the IPC and only after 4 months, when Mariselvi succumbed to injuries, the case was altered to one under Section 302 of the IPC. The girl was admitted in the hospital and discharged for over 3 times and it took the girl 4 months to succumb to injuries. The mother cannot be said to have the intention to murder the girl.
Decision of the Court:
The Criminal Appeal was partly allowed and the conviction and sentence of the appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC was set aside. Instead, the appellant was convicted for an offence under Section 304(1) of the IPC to undergo 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 5k. in default to undergo 6 months of rigorous imprisonment.
Case Title: Rajeshwari vs State rep by The Inspector of Police
Coram: Honourable Mr. Justice P.N. Prakash and Honourable Dr. Justice G. Jayachandran
Case No.: Crl. A(MD)No.283 of 2020
Advocate for the Appellant: Mr R. Manickaraj, for Mr. M. Jegadeesh Pandian
Advocate for the Respondent: Mr. S. Ravi
Read Judgment @LatestLaws.com
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