The Jharkhand High Court has dismissed an appeal and upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of a woman for the 2013 murder of her two minor sons. A division bench comprising Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Justice Arun Kumar Rai affirmed the lower court verdict, ruling that the circumstantial evidence established the woman acted to eliminate her children, aged four and two, with the assistance of her alleged partner.
Judicial Observations
Refusing to set aside the conviction, the high court observed that the crime was executed in a secretive, brutal, and grotesque manner. The judges noted that rather than safeguarding her young children, the mother had acted callously to destroy them. The court further highlighted that the appellant failed to provide a plausible explanation for the sequence of events, leaving all evidentiary components aligned toward her guilt.
Sentence and Legal Provisions
The high court sustained the 2021 trial court judgment convicting the woman under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code for murder committed with common intention. In addition to the sentence of rigorous life imprisonment, the bench confirmed a fine of 20,000 rupees, with an additional six-month simple imprisonment penalty in default of payment.
Details of the Incident
According to prosecution records, the incident came to light on the morning of May 20, 2013. The woman’s husband reported that while bathing at approximately 6:30 a.m., a neighbor informed him that his wife was sitting on the road outside their home. She had left the previous evening with her two sons to visit another man’s residence and had not returned.
Subsequent searches led to the discovery of the two children’s bodies inside a nearby drain. The infants were found wrapped in the woman’s saree, bearing physical injuries alongside indications of poisoning.
Prosecution Case and Motive
State prosecutors alleged that the woman maintained an extra-marital relationship with the man she visited. The prosecution presented that the man wished to marry her and regarded the two young children as an obstacle to their union. Investigators concluded that the mother executed the killings at the man’s instigation and with his active involvement.
Defense Arguments and Judicial Findings
In the appeal, defense advocate Arvind Kumar Choudhary argued that the conviction rested entirely on circumstantial evidence without any direct eyewitnesses. The defense asserted that the male associate committed the murders independently and maintained that the woman was found unconscious on the road due to shock. The defense also claimed she had visited the man’s house merely to recover a personal loan.
The high court rejected these contentions. The bench noted that although the woman acknowledged taking her sons to the man’s residence, her statement attempting to shift sole blame onto him was unconvincing. The judges observed that her specific claim regarding the children being forced to drink a soft drink was a deliberate attempt to align her statement with autopsy findings of poisoning while attempting to exonerate herself.
