NE LEGAL BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JULY 12
Coming to the rescue of a destitute woman serving life term and languishing in jail for the past 11 years for allegedly murdering her one and half year-old daughter by throwing her in a well, the Supreme Court has granted her bail and sent her appeal against conviction back to the High Court.
The Supreme Court t said the High Court could not dismiss the appeal against conviction and sentence in default without hearing the convict and it has to be decided on merit even if the appellant in-person or the counsel representing her is not present.
A bench of Justices R F Nariman, Navin Sinha and B R Gavai in its recent order said, “We, therefore, set aside the judgment and order dated April 22, 2014 and remand the matter to be disposed of on merits. Meanwhile, considering that the appellant has been in jail for a period of almost 11 years, we grant bail subject to the satisfaction of the trial Court”.
Advocate Thomas Franklin Caesar, appearing for the woman petitioner, challenged the April 22, 2014, order of the Madurai bench of Madras High Court, dismissing the appeal against conviction under murder charges and life term awarded to her, as her lawyer did not appear to argue the matter. He referred to the 2013 verdict of the top court in K S Panduranga versus State of Karnataka by which it was held that an appeal against an order of conviction cannot be dismissed in default but must be taken up and decided on merits even if the appellant in-person or the counsel representing him is not present. The top court agreed with Caesar’s contention and said, “Given this judgment, we are inclined to agree with the appellant”.
In her appeal, the woman has challenged her conviction in the case under section 302 (punishment for murder) of IPC and awarding of life sentence claiming that there were material contradictions in the testimony of a prosecution witness which does not categorically prove that she had dropped her child into the well.
She also questioned the deposition and finding of the doctor, who had conducted the post-mortem and recorded that both the lungs of the child were empty.
The woman in her petition contended that usually when an already deceased person is thrown in well, water would not enter the lungs, so the prosecution’s theory of the woman drowning the child was wrong.
She said the doctor failed to record the finding which would have been fatal to the prosecution story and proving the case beyond doubt.
On March 31, 2004, the woman was convicted of murder charges and sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court at Tiruchirapalli in a case registered on the complaint of her husband.
The woman is currently lodged in Trichy women’s prison and is suffering from various ailments, and her six-year child from her second marriage is in an orphanage at Tirunelveli district in Tamilnadu.
