Case – Emperor v. Mt. Dhirajia, 1940
Facts
There was dispute between Mt. Dhirajia and her husband Jhagga. Husband was continuously beating her. They had a six-month-old baby. The wife desired to go to visit her parents while Jhagga was opposing. One day she woke up and started to move with her baby along the railway track. When Jhagga woke up and found his wife and the baby missing. He went out in pursuit of them, and when he reached a point close to the railway line, he saw her making her way along the path.
When she heard him coming after her, she turned round in a panic, ran a little distance with the baby girl in her arms and jumped into an open well which was at little distance from the path. Baby died and she eventually survived. She was charged for committing murder of baby and attempting suicide.
Issue
Was Dhirajia committed culpable homicide/murder with the knowledge of causing bodily injury which was likely to cause death?
Was Dhirajia committed attempt to suicide punishable under Section 309, IPC?
Contentions and Judgement
- In this case the Court accepted that Dhirajia had neither intention to cause death nor intention to cause bodily injury. But she was sane. So she had knowledge.
- The Court said, ‘Intention’ appears to us to be one thing and ‘knowledge’ appears to us to be a different thing. In order to possess and to form an intention, there must be a capacity for reason. And when by some extraneous force the capacity for reason has been ousted, it seems to us that the capacity to form an intention must have been unseated too.
- But to our minds, knowledge stands upon a different footing. Some degree of knowledge must be attributed to every sane person. Obviously, the degree of knowledge that 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.”
- She feared her husband and she had reason to fear her husband. She was endeavouring to escape from him at dawn and in the panic into which she was thrown when she saw him behind her she jumped into the well. She had an excuse and that excuse was panic or fright. For these reasons Mt. Dhirajia was not guilty of murder.
- She was acquitted for attempt to suicide. She did not take conscious effort to take her own life. She did so in an effort to escape from her husband.
- She was convicted for culpable homicide under section 304 because she had done with knowledge under excusable circumstances.
- She was sentenced for six months with rigorous imprisonment. She had already been in prison for a period of eight months. So, she was released at once.
