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 appel