Judgment

KRISHNA IYER J. :- A few facts with unique features, attracting a recondite provision of the Penal Code, constitute the subject-matter of the criminal case which ended in an acquittal in the Sessions Court, reversed at the appellate level and is re-agitated before us in this appeal by special leave.

2. The offence for which the accused has been punished is one under Section 328, Indian Penal Code, for administering poison to a doctor by a compounder with intent to cause hurt. We did bestow anxious reflection on the materials placed before us in the light of the submissions made by counsel for the appellant, Shri Nuruddin Ahmed, but with due regard to their peculiarities and probabilities, we have stabilised ourselves on the conclusion that the High Court has held right that the accused is guilty of the offence charged.

3. The prosecution case, in brief, takes us to a small hospital scene where we have two medical officers, P. Ws. 2 and 3, a compounder- the accused, and a peon, Badri. The senior doctor, P. W. 2, arrives in the hospital around 9.30 a. m. with a bad headache and asks the accused, appellant, for ten grains of aspirin. Some 12 or 13 minutes are taken for the appellant to bring to his own doctor aspirin which is readily available in the dispensing room. The appellant brings two packets, aspirin. written on them, and the patient - this time the doctor himself -consumes one packet. Bitten by bitterness of taste unusual in aspirin, P. W.2 asks the attender, Badri, to fetch a glass of water. By that time, P. W. 3, the other doctor, had come and is sitting in the next chair, P. W. 2 complains to P. W. 3 about the strange bitterness in the tongue, aspirin being tasteless. He gargles his mouth, washes his face with water and asks the attender to buy some betel leaves, apparently to overcome the bad taste. Thereafter he proceeds to his normal work and tries to give injection to a patient waiting, but begins to feel shaky. Within a few minutes P.W. 2 has the sensation of cramps in the calf muscles and P. W. 3, the other doctor, is perplexed. So he goes into the dispensing room and asks the accused from which bottle he had given the aspirin. The latter shows a bottle of aspirin kept there, and when asked whether he had accidentally given strychnine denies that strychnine, a deadly poison, is in stock at all. Of course, the accused himself begins to tremble. Anyway, P. W. 3 seals the bottle of aspirin taken from the dispensing room as well as the paper of the packet in which the medicine taken by P. W. 2 was kept and the other unconsumed packet. Apprehensive of poisoning, P. W. 2 is removed to the District Hospital. where he is given a stomach wash .His condition becomes precarious and his statement is recorded by P. W. 7, the Police Officer attached to the Kotwali Police Station, and a case is registered under Section 328, Indian Penal Code, against the accused, Ex. Ka -l. P.W. 3 gives a written report, Ex. Ka. 2, and also the sealed packets to P. W. 7, the Police Officer. Thereafter, investigation begins and the dispensing and store rooms are inspected and the stock register examined. No bottle of strychnine is seen in the dispensing room, but one containing 4.2 grams of this lethal poison is found in the store room - vide EX. Ka. 8, the search, memo

4. The Chemical Examiner found on analysis of the stomach wash that P. W. 2 had consumed strychnine. There were traces of strychnine crystals in the paper of the packet from which P. W. 2 had swallowed the headache cure. The other packet, which was not used, contained only aspirin. The symptoms which P.W. 2 developed were clearly indicative of strychnine poisoning.

5. It has been found by the High Court, that it was the accused compounder who brought the two packets of medicine to P. W. 2. Likewise, it has been found that it was the accused who dispensed the medicine and that there was no strychnine in the dispensing room, but there was some quantity of it in the store roo