Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.:- In a rural region of Andhra Pradesh freudian fury or explosion of six jealousy expressed itself in a gruesome murder of a young woman and her tender child by the accused, a young woman with an only child ten years old, all because, notwithstanding both being married, they had invested amorous affections in a middleaged libertine, P. W. 16, conveniently a widower. It is an admitted fact that the accused, although married, was keeping illicit relations with P. W. 16, a shepherd, but she discovered that lately her paramour was on flirting contacts with the deceased. This knowledge angered her so much that she extinguished the life of her rival on November 4, 1971, in the afternoon in a jungle, manipulating her murderous venture so cleverly that for a time people thought that she was the murdered and searched for her body. Closer enquiry revealed that the victim was Ansuya and other innocent one her baby less than two years old.

2. Shri Kathuria, appearing as amicus curiae, has presented a painstakingly meticulous argument on behalf of the prisoner, who has been condemned to death by the court below. It is but meet that we appreciate the industrious advocacy enthusiastically made by this young advocate.

3. By Sundown on November 4, 1971, a cadaver was found in a field outside the village of Konapur, Medak District, Andhra Pradesh. The deceased was a damsel who was first mistaken to be the accused because her face had been burnt out of recognition and on her body was found clothing which belonged to the accused-a device resorted to, as later evidence discloses, by the accused to throw enquiries off the scent. On November 8, 1971, the dead body of a baby Nirmala, daughter of Ansuya, the deceased, was recovered from the sandbed of a stream near the field. Investigations disclosed that Anamma, the accused, was the perpetrator of this fiendish crime. She was duly prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to death for the offence of murder and life imprisonment for secreting evidence of the crime, under Section 201, Indian Penal Code. An appeal by the accused and a referred trial under the Code resulted in a Bench of the High Court affirming the guilt and upholding the sentence. A jail appeal has come before us, argued by Shri Kathuria as amicus curiae.

4. The people involved are more or less primitive rustics and sex inhibitions do not appear to have interdicted private philandering. The prisoner had been married to P. W. 7 of Ankenpally, three miles distant from Konapur where her parents resided. Carnal knowledge with P. W. 16 developed even when she was in her husband s house and she manifested her passion by stealing gold rings from the house of one Rachappa to make it over to P. W. 16 as a memento of her illicit love. Indeed, this little stealing, induced by her improper relations with P. W. 16, was discovered. She suffered flagellation from her father-in-law for this act, and her father, P. W. 2, removed her to his own house as a sequel. The setting of Konapur did not stand in the way of her continued intimacy with P. W. 16, who responded by shifting to this village himself.

5. The deceased, Ansuya, was the wife of P. W. 12 who was, as ill-luck would have it, the neighbour of the accused s family. Opportunity tempted and Ansuya also established erotic contact with that lascivious P. W. 16. The priosoner, in due course, came to know about the shifting of affections by her paramour who tried to bluff her in vain. Fired by jealousy the prisoner fixed her mind upon liquidating her rival.

6. On November 4, 1971, at about 3 p.m. the ill-starred Ansuya had left for the fields taking the baby with her. The accused tempted and shadowed her, with some clothes from her house to be washed in the village stream. P. W. 15, P. W. 4 and P. W. 13 have given testimony which, if believed, will show that the accused and the deceased were seen together in the fatal field at about 5 p.m., the day the mother and child died. It is said th