The first accused, in S.C.No.45/97 on the file of the II Additional Sessions Judge, Kollam, is the appellant. She, along with the 2nd accused, was tried for offences punishable under Sections 419, 420, 468, 471 and 304 of the IPC, read with Section 34 thereof. The second accused was acquitted and the appellant/first accused was convicted of offences punishable under Sections 419 and 304 Indian Penal Code. She is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for two years under the first count and for another term of 3 years and to pay a fine of Rs.30,000/- in default whereof, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a term of six months under the second court. The sentences were directed to run concurrently. On all other counts, she also was acquitted.

2. The allegation against the appellant was that she cheated by personation exhibiting the board ‘S.N. Hospital and Maternity Home’ in building No.TP/415 and by deception making others believe that she was a qualified registered medical practitioner, competent to treat with Allopathic medicines and dishonestly cheated the patients and that she treated the patients including the deceased Sheeja, daughter of PW.2, without taking precaution against drug reaction and that she later succumbed to the injuries arising out of such drug reaction. Therefore, she committed cheating by personation and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

3. Challenging the conviction and sentence, for the offence under Section 419 and 304 I.P.C., this appeal is preferred by the first accused.

4. Section 419 Indian Penal Code reads as under:

“Punishment for cheating by personation – Whoever cheats by personation shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”

Cheating by personation is defined in Section 416, which reads as follows:

Cheating by Personation – A person is said to ‘cheat by personation’ if he cheats by pretending to be some other person, or by knowingly substituting one person for another, or representing that he or representing that he or any other person is a person other than he or such other person really is”.

Explanation – The offence is committed whether the individual personated is a real or imaginary person.

5. In this case, the prosecution does not have a case that the first accused Radha Sasidharan pretended to be any other person – existing or fictitious. She was, all the way, during the alleged transaction, acting in her own name, Radha Sasidharan. Though only a nurse, she had styled herself as a ‘doctor’ competent to treat patients. Even if she had pretended to be a doctor, though not really a doctor, she cannot be convicted for cheating by personation under Section 419 Indian Penal Code. Necessarily, she cannot be convicted on that score.

6. The Public Prosecutor contends that, in such situation, she can be convicted for the offence of cheating, ingredients of which have been proved in this case. If she herself pretended to be a doctor which she really was not, that will amount to cheating as mentioned in Section 415, which provides that:

Cheating—Whoever, by deceiving any person, fraudulently or dishonestly induces the person so deceived to deliver any property to any person, or to consent that any person shall retain any property, or intentionally induces the person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he were not so deceived, and which act or omission causes or is likely to cause damage or arm to that person in body, mind, reputation or property, is said to ‘cheat’.

Going by the prosecution case, as rightly pointed out by the Public Prosecutor, had the appellant not pretended herself as a doctor, PW.2 would not have taken the deceased to the appellant for treatment or admitted her in the hospital run by the appellant. Thus, the deceased would not have undergone treatment by the appellant, while she was alive. But she underwent treatment as a patient under the