Acquisition woman accused of murdering her two months old child by throwing in river : Karnataka High Court.
This particular decision is held by the High Court Of Karnataka through the division bench of Justices KS Somashekar and Shivashankar Amarannavar in the case of Kavitha v. State of Karnataka.
Facts
It is transpired in the case of the prosecution that, on 24.08.2016 at around 2.00 p.m., the accused had come with her husband CW.1, who is examined as PW.1 – Manjunatha, to the Renuka Hospital situated at Koratagere along with their two months’ old girl baby for treatment, as the child was suffering from some respiratory problem and also epilepsy. Later, on the same day, at around 4.00 p.m., as the child had respiratory problem and epilepsy, the accused, who is none other than the mother of the deceased girl baby, was not getting the enough milk to feed the baby, threw her baby into Suvarnamukhi river by the side of Koratagere town. This is the narration in the complaint made by PW.1 –
Manjunatha and based upon his complaint, criminal law was set into motion by recording FIR as per Ex.P15 for the offence punishable under section 302 of IPC. Subsequent to registration of the crime and so also criminal law was set into motion, PW.15 – S.Muniraju being an Investigating Officer, took up the case for investigation and during investigation, he conducted spot panchanama at Ex.P2 in the presence of PW.7 and PW.12 and took photographs at Ex.P3 and Ex.P4 and also conducted inquest over the dead body of two months’ old baby in the presence of the panch witnesses as per Ex.P8 in the presence of PW.5 – Babu, PW.6 – Abhilash and PW.7 – Adinarayana. The dead body of the two months’ old baby had been sent to the mortuary and whereby PW.14 Dr.Rudramurthy who conducted autopsy over the dead body and issued postmortem report as per Ex.P14 and whereby he opined that the cause of death was due to asphyxia as a result of drowning.
Orders and judgements
In the instant case, the Trial Court has given more credentiality to the evidence of PW.3 (child’s doctor), PW.14 (doctor who conducted autopsy) and PW.15 (Investigating Officer).”
“In the instant case, the importance of corroboration of the evidence which was facilitated by the prosecution, it must be positive, cogent, consistent and probabalized that the accused had committed the murder of the deceased. But in the instant case, Kavitha who is none other than the mother of the deceased baby aged two months, though the prosecution in their case put on trial of this accused, subjected examination of PW.1 to PW.15, but no worthwhile evidence has been facilitated by the prosecution for securing the conviction of the accused for the offence under section 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860.”
Accordingly it held, “Therefore, in this appeal it requires intervention. If not intervened by re-appreciation of evidence and also revisiting judgment of conviction and order of sentence, certainly there shall be some substantial miscarriage of justice to the accused, who is gravamen of the accusations.”
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Judgement reviewed by- Mohammed Shoaib