The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted an appellant-mother, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing her own baby by strangulation, giving her the benefit of doubt.
A bench of Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar & Justice R Subhash Reddy said, “it is true that in the post-mortem, doctor has opined that death is due to asphyxia and there were marks of strangulation, but at the same time of totality of evidence on record is considered, motive is not established and it is totally unnatural for the appellant- mother to kill her own baby by strangulation”.
On August 24, 2007, appellant delivered a baby girl around 12:30 and according to the prosecution story she had caused her death by strangulation when the baby was handed over to her at 4:30 PM on the said date. On August 26, 2007 post-mortem was conducted on the dead body and the doctor opined that cause of death was asphyxia due to ante-mortem strangulation. Following this, a case under Section 302 IPC was registered and trial commenced. The trial court by its judgment dated 19.12.2009 held the appellant guilty of an offence under Section 302 IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment. Later, the high court affirmed the judgment of the trial court after which the appellant approached the Supreme Court.
Counsel appearing for the appellant submitted, if the totality of evidence is taken into consideration, the guilt is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt and the judgments of the High Court as well as the trial court are based on surmises and conjectures. Whereas, counsel for the State contended, after the girl was handed over to the appellant she was found dead by the nursing staff of the hospital. Further, it was submitted that though the conviction rests on circumstantial evidence, chain is established to prove the guilt of the accused-appellant, and there are no grounds to interfere with the well-considered judgment of the trial court, as confirmed by the High Court.
Supreme Court said, “It is also clear from the record that in view of the drugs administered on her she was sleepy and drowsy. In absence of any clear evidence on record, High Court, as well as the Trial Court, committed an error, in attributing motive to the appellant that, she has killed her baby as she was female. The Trial court as well as the High Court has based conviction on presumptions without any basis. It is fairly well settled that to base conviction solely on the circumstantial evidence unless the chain of circumstances is established conviction cannot be recorded. From the totality of evidence on record, it is clear that the baby girl was put in an incubator with an oxygen mask and she has also not opened her eyes and she did not cry after birth. There was a possibility of natural death.”
“Though the doctor has opined in the post-mortem report, the cause of death is asphyxia but in absence of any clear evidence on record it is not safe to convict the appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC”, Supreme Court noted.
“As the evidence on record is not sufficient to bring home the guilt of the accused, beyond reasonable doubt. We are of the considered view that the appellant is entitled to benefit of doubt, for acquittal from the charge framed against her,” said Supreme Court in its order.
— India Legal Bureau