1. The appellant has been convicted by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge of Quilon for three distinct offences of murder under S.302 I.P.C. and for attempting to commit suicide, punishable under S.309 I.P.C. For each offence of murder she has been sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and for that under S.309 to undergo simple imprisonment for one year with the direction that all the four sentences shall run concurrently. The case against the appellant was that she caused the death of three of her children one aged 7, the second aged 5 and the third aged one by throwing them into a well and that afterwards she herself jumped into it with a view to commit suicide. She was, however, rescued by passers-by who heard her cries from the well, but by the time the bodies of the children were recovered the children were all dead. The learned Additional Sessions Judge found her guilty on all the four counts in the charge, convicted and sentenced her as stated above. The appeal is against these convictions and sentences.



2. The occurrence took place on 14.4.1956 in Kulasekharapuram Shencottah now part of the Madras State. The lower court pronounced its judgment on 7.6.1956 and the appeal was registered in the Travancore-Cochin High Court on 18.10.195

6. In the normal course the case should have been certified under S.66(2) of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 (Central Act XXXVII of 1956) to be transferred to the High Court of Madras, but by oversight that was not done. When the appeal came up before us a doubt was raised whether it was competent for us to hear and dispose of the same. S.60(6) of the States Reorganisation Act provided inter alia that all proceedings pending in the High Court of Travancore-Cochin immediately before the appointed day other than those certified by the Chief Justice of that High Court under sub-s

. (2) of S.66 shall stand transferred to the High Court of Kerala. Under sub-s

. (2) of S.66 it was not incumbent on the Chief Justice of Travancore-Cochin to certify for transfer to the Madras High Court all cases pending immediately before the appointed day in the Travancore-Cochin High Court which arose from the territories transferred to Madras from Travancore-Cochin. In view of these provisions it is unnecessary for us to examine whether by reason of the transfer of the venue of the crime to the Madras State we have under rules of Private International Law ceased to have jurisdiction to hear and dispose of the appeal. The appellant is undergoing her sentence in the Central Prison, Trivandrum and as per the prayer made in her memorandum of appeal she was brought up before this Court at the hearing and besides hearing the counsel retained at the States expense to defend her, we heard her as well.

3. There is no direct evidence to connect the accused with any one of the offences she stood charged with. At the same time there is overwhelming evidence to establish the appellants complicity in the three murders she has been found guilty of and also to prove that she attempted to commit suicide by jumping into a well known as Saivapillamars well. Her relations with her husband (Pw. 1) and his parents (Pws. 15 and 16 were anything but cordial. In the afternoon of the day she was rescued from the well, she had quarrelled with P.ws.15 and 16 as also with P.w.

1. They had all belaboured her that day. This was at about 2.30 P.M. Afterwards she left her house with her four children on the pretext of going to the river-side to bathe. Not far away from the house at Kasmadan Kovil she sent her eldest son (Pw. 14) aged 10 years back to the house and proceeded ostensibly to the river side with her three younger children. P.ws. 15 and 16 saw her leaving the house with her children and P.Ws. 9 and 10 saw them on the road to the river side. P.W. 14 besides speaking to these facts also stated that he was sent back when they had reached Kasmadan Kovil. Pw. 8 saw the appellant and her three younger children after that and later on Pw. 2 saw them not far away from the Saivapillamars well from which well the appellant was rescued and the dead bodies of the three children were recovered. It was Pw. 3 a cowboy who first heard somebodys cries from the well. Later Pw. 6 heard cries from the same well and he together with a neighbour (Pw. 4) went to the side of the well and looking into it found the appellant in it, holding fast to a ring or step in the well. When Pws. 3,4 and 6 saw her in the well she was stark-naked and as requested by her Pw. 4 threw a cloth for her to wear. Later Pw. 6 and others who gathered there (including Pw. 7, a police constable) rescued the appellant from the well and to those who were there then, she made no secret of the fact that getting desperate at the treatment her husband and his parents gave her she had thrown her younger children into the well and afterwards jumped into it herself to end her life. She was then removed to the Shencottah Hospital and there she became unconscious for some time. After recovering consciousness she told the Medical Officer in charge (Pw. 11) what had happened, that is, she had thrown the children into the well and that she herself jumped into it with the intention of committing suicide. Pw. 11 had made a record of this confession in the wound certificate, Ext. P5 and he gave evidence about it at the trial. She remained an in-patient in the hospital till 21.4.1956 and afterwards made a confession before the Munsiff-Magistrate (Pw. 18) of Shencottah about what she had done to her three children and of her own act in jumping into the well. That confessional statement is Ext. P. 15.



4. Pw.1 when he returned home after his days work found that his wife and the three younger children were not there. Pw.14 told him that the appellant had taken the children to the river-side and that though he was also made to accompany them, he was sent back at the Kasmadan Kovil and that they had not returned after that. Pw.1s enquiries for his wife and the younger children first gave him no clue as to their whereabouts, but later he heard that a Pandaram (the caste) to which the appellant belongs) woman was found in Saivapillamars well and going there he found that it was his wife who was in the well. He immediately fell down in a swoon and was removed to his house. Later when he became conscious he was told that his wife was removed to the hospital and that he should give information to the police. Ext. P1 is the statement he gave to the police and that formed the basis of the First Information Report in the case. The police on search recovered the dead bodies of the three children from the well. The concerned inquest reports are Exts. P. 11, P.12 and P.13 and Ext. P. 8, P. 9 and P.10 are the Post-mortem certificates Pw.11 granted for the autopsy he conducted over the bodies of the three dead children. These documents as also the oral testimony of Pw.11 made it clear beyond doubt that the children died of asphyxia caused by drowning. The identity of the dead bodies was established by the evidence among others of Pw.1, the father and Pw.14, the eldest son. In finding the appellant guilty of the three murders and of the attempt to commit suicide the lower court has depended upon the circumstantial evidence furnished by the recovery of the dead bodies from the well as also of the rescue of the appellant from it, to her having been found in the vicinity of the well with her three younger children some time before her cries were heard from it, to the extrajudicial confession. She made first to PWs. 4 and 6 before she was rescued from the well, to that made to PW.11, the Medical Officer, to her judicial confession before Pw.18 and also to the fact that the harsh and ruthless treatment by the husband and his parents must have provoked her to these acts in a moment of weakness and absolute desperation. We have carefully considered these different items of evidence and we have found ourselves to be in entire agreement with the lower courts conclusion that the appellant caused the death of her children by deliberately throwing them into the well and that afterwards she herself jumped into it with a view to end her life. No doubt she had found life impossible in her husbands house. All the same she had no justification whatever to end the lives of the three innocent children whom she had herself brought forth into the world. Indeed Mr. Raya Shenoi who appeared on her behalf found the evidence to be overwhelming to admit any argument being raised against the conviction on any one of the four counts. In all the circumstances of the case we have therefore to confirm the convictions entered against the appellant by the court below. As only the lesser penalty prescribed for murder has been imposed in respect of each murder, no question of interferring with those sentences either arises. The sentence of 1 years simple imprisonment passed for the attempt to commit suicide is to run concurrently with the other sentences and we therefore leave that also undisturbed. In passing the sentences for the three murders the lower court had not chosen to say whether the imprisonment the appellant is to undergo should be simple or rigorous. S.302 as amended by the Schedule to the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 1955 (Central Act XXVI of 1955 only states that the alternative punishment for murder shall be imprisonment for life and not rigorous imprisonment for life or simple imprisonment for life. The court passing the sentence has, however, to keep in view the provisions of S.60 of the Penal Code and choose one or the other form in view of all the circumstances. Recently we had another instance where the Sessions Judge had failed to specify whether imprisonment for life awarded by him was rigorous or simple. In that case the Inspector General of Prisons had sought our direction as to what description of imprisonment the prisoner should be made to undergo. Here we clarify the position by stating that the imprisonment for life in this case shall be simple imprisonment and not rigorous.



5. Counsel for the appellant invited our attention to the provision of S.401, Criminal Procedure Code and certain decisions thereunder where courts made recommendations for remission of sentences in part. The court is concerned only with the passing of the sentence; to carry it into effect is the function of the executive Government. It is up to them to decide whether they should invoke their powers in this case. It is in consideration of the desperate and helpless state the appellant found herself that the lower court imposed the lesser penalty prescribed by law for murder and inasmuch as we did not find the appellant to be of an abnormal or weak mind we do not feel justified in making a recommendation for remission. At the time of the occurrence the appellant was pregnant and her new born baby was in her arms when she appeared before this Court. Whether these circumstances should serve as ground for remission of sentence is entirely within the discretion of the Government.



6. Confirming the convictions and sentences passed by the lower court we dismiss the appeal. Dismissed.