Woman of 20 years age tried for sec 302 and 309- want to go parental home - husband gave beating to her- she left matrimonial house in the night- her Mt. Dhirajia turned round in a panic, ran a little distance with the baby girl in her arms and then either jumped or fell into an open well which was at some little distance from the path. It is important to observe that obviously she did this in panic because we have the clearest possible evidence that she looked behind her and was evidently running away from her husband. The result was, to put it briefly, that the little child died while the woman was eventually rescued and suffered little or no injury- -Some degree of knowledge must, we think, be attributed to every sane person. Obviously, the degree of knowledge which any particular person can be assumed to possess must vary. For instance, we cannot attribute the same degree of knowledge to an uneducated as to an educated person. But we think that to some extent knowledge must be attributed to everyone who is sane. -
however primitive a man or woman may be, and however frightened he or she may be, knowledge of the likely consequence of so imminently dangerous an act must be supposed to have remained with him or her-
hat is the fourth case in which culpable homicide is murder. We have already found that Mt. Dhirajia must be taken to have known that what she did must in all probability cause the death of her baby. But this is qualified by the further requirement that "such act" must be "without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing death...." The construction of this particular passage of Section 300 is well settled. It is well settled that it is not murder merely to cause death by doing an act with the knowledge that it is so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death. In order that an act done with such knowledge should constitute murder it is necessary that it should be committed without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing the death or bodily injury. An act done with the knowledge of its consequences is not prima facie murder. It becomes murder only if it can be positively affirmed that there was no excuse. The requirements of the section are not satisfied by the act of homicide being one of extreme recklessness. It must in addition be wholly inexcusable. When a risk is incurred-even a risk of the gravest possible character which must normally result in death-the taking of that risk is not murder unless it was inexcusable to take it. That, as we understand it, in terms of this case, is the meaning of this passage of Section 300, I.P.C. Now looking at the facts of this case which we need not repeat again, we think that it is not possible to say that Mt. Dhirajia in jumping into this well did so without excuse--
Difference from Supadi Lukadu v. Emperor (25) 12 AIR 1925 Bom 310 is that in that case child was on back of lady and court reached to the conclusion that she was not aware of child-
She did so in an effort to escape from her husband. The taking of her own life was not, we think, for one moment present to her mind. For that reason we think that Mt. Dhirajia was rightly acquitted under Section 309, I.P.C--
Punish only for 6 month u/s 304 IPC
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