Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

High Court recommends remission of life term

A. Subramani

CHENNAI: In an extraordinary gesture, the Madras High Court has recommended to the Governor the remission of life imprisonment imposed on a woman, found guilty of murdering her four-month-old child.

However, the Division Bench comprising Justice N. Dhinakar and Justice M. Chockalingam made the recommendation only after confirming the life term awarded to her by the Principal Sessions Court, Erode.

Deserted by her husband, Ismail Beebi of Vellakoil the "poverty-stricken" woman decided to kill her two children, aged four years and four months respectively.

On September 20, 1997 she threw the four-month-old baby into a well. Her bid to throw the other child in was foiled by villagers. She was arrested and charged with murder. In February 1999, the Principal Sessions Judge of Erode district found her guilty and sentenced her to undergo imprisonment for life. She preferred an appeal in the Madras High Court.

The Division Bench did not accept her defence argument that the key prosecution witness was an interested party in the case.

It said there were no reasons to interfere with the trial court conclusion that Ismail Beebi had thrown the child into the well, and that the child died due to drowning.

But, after the finding was pronounced, counsel for the woman pleaded that she took the extreme step only under exceptional circumstances and because she could not maintain herself and her children after the head of the family deserted them.

He wanted the court to consider recommending the case to the Governor for remission of sentence on sympathetic grounds.

Acceding to the plea, the Judges said: "This court, considering the facts in the case, feels that this is a fit case for considering the remission of sentence by the Governor of Tamil Nadu under Article 161 of the Constitution. We have already noted that she has lost her four-month-old baby on account of mental strain due to the desertion by her husband and that she has another child to take care of."

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