MST VIRAN WALI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant has been convicted under Section 302 R. P. C. and sentenced to imprisonment for life. A reference has also been made to us for confirmation of the sentence of life imprisonment.

(2.) THE prosecution case was that the appellant was a nurse on probation and was on duty in the Male Eye Ward in the S. M. G. S. Hospital Jammu on the night intervening 20/21st January 1960. Some time in the midnight the appellant entered a hath room and gave birth to a child. Soon after that, she threw that child through an opening in the ventilator. Thereafter, she came and sat in the duty room and felt serious pain in her abdomen. She asked for some dettol from a nurse who informed P. W. Krishna Sharma about the matter. Shortly thereafter the staff nurse Ishar Devi went to call Dr. Prabha Sharma to see the appellant. Dr. Prabha Sharma then came and saw the appellant who was sitting on a bench without her Shilwar and found her bleeding profusely from her private parts. The lady doctor then sought the permission of the Matron for her examination and after her examination she discovered that she had given a birth to a child. After questioning the accused, the appellant gave out that she had just been delivered of a child which she had thrown out on the ground through the ventilator. The Lady Doctor thereupon sent P. W. No. 1 Asha Sweeperess to bring the child. When the child was brought the doctor noticed serious injuries on her head and found her gasping for breath. She then revived the child but ultimately the child died the next day at 2 P. M. Dr. Sharma then sent a report to the Gynaecologist of S. M. G. S. Hospital Jammu mentioning the aforesaid facts. This report was treated as first information report by the police which was drawn on 21-1-60 at 3-45 P. M. at the police station Jammu and a case was instituted against the appellant on the basis of this report. During the course of investigation it appeared that on the next day the appellant had sent a message through P. W. Jagdish Chander to Harsant Singh to inform him that she had given birth to a daughter. Dr. Surjit Singh performed the post mortem examination of the child and he found the following injuries on the new born baby: 1. A contusion 11/2" X 1" over the left ear on the scalp. 2. An ecchymosis mark on the left thumb. 3. An abrasion over the back of the right elbow. 4. An abrasion over the right foot.

(3.) IN the opinion of the doctor the death of the child was due to her being thrown from a height of 21 ft. which caused the fracture of the parietal brines of the skull, resulting in coma.