Case – Gyarsibai v. The State, 1953
Fact – Gyarsibai, her children, her husband Jagannath and her sister-in-law Kaisar Bai used to reside together. There were constant quarrels between the appellant and her sister-in-law. It is alleged that one such quarrel took place. In this quarrel Kaisar Bai asked the appellant to leave the house.
Thereupon, the appellant left the house, taking her three children aged 7 years, 5 years and 1½ years and saying that on account of her sister-in-law she would jump into a well. Soon after, the appellant went to a well in the village and threw herself into the well along with her three children. Some inhabitants of the village found Gyarasibai supporting herself on an edge of the well and the three children dead in the well.
The appellant admitted before the Magistrate as well as before the Sessions Judge that she jumped into the well together with her children on account of her sister-in-law Kaisar Bai’s harassment.
Issue – Whether Gyarsibai is guilty of the offence of murder of the three children under Section 302?
Whether Gyarsibai is guilty of attempted suicide under Section 309?
Contentions and Judgement
- On the facts, it is clear that the appellant Gyarasi Bai had no intention to cause the death of any of her children and she jumped into the well not with the intention of killing her children but with the intention of committing suicide. That being so, Clauses 1, 2 and 3 of Section 300, Penal Code, which apply to cases in which death is caused by an act done with the intention of causing death or causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause the death of person or sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death cannot be applied to the present case.
- The only clause of Section 300, Penal Code, which then remains for consideration is the 4th clause.
- It will be seen from clause fourthly that if death is caused merely by doing an act with the knowledge that it is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death, then the act is murder as is defined in Clause 4. In order that an act done with such knowledge should constitute murder, it is essential that it should have been committed “without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing death or such bodily injury”.
- Every sane person is presumed to have some knowledge of the nature of his act. This knowledge is not negatived by any mental condition short of insanity.
- An imminently dangerous act is not murder if it is done to prevent a greater evil. If the evil can be avoided without doing the act, then there can be no valid justification for doing the act which is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death or such injury as is likely to cause death.
- Here, there is no material, whatsoever, to come to the conclusion that the appellant could not have escaped the harassment at the hands of her sister-in-law except by jumping herself into a well with her three children.
- She was liable for the attempt to suicide and causing the murder of three children because she had jumped into the well without any excuse. She jumped into the well in consciousness. She did this only for satisfaction of self-ego. There was not any imminent danger.
