The appellant's actions resulted from paranoid schizophrenia, rendering her incapable of understanding the nature of her act, thus entitling her to acquittal under Section 84 of IPC.

JUDGMENT:

(Per Hon’ble Sri Justice K. Lakshman)

Heard Mrs. Monica P. Pole, learned counsel for appellant - accused and Mr. Syed Yasar Mamoon, learned Additional Public Prosecutor appearing on behalf of the respondent - State.

2. Vide judgment dated 07.04. 2025 in Sessions Case No.397 of 2022, learned I Additional District and Sessions Judge, Suryapet (hereinafter referred to as ‘trial Court’), found the appellant - accused guilty of the offence under Section - 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short ‘IPC’) and accordingly imposed death penalty on her.

3. Feeling aggrieved by the aforesaid conviction and death sentence imposed by learned trial Court, the accused preferred Criminal Appeal No.547 of 2025 , while learned trial Court addressed a letter vide Dis.No.220 of , dated 07.05. to this Court seeking confirmation of death penalty under Section - 366 (i) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short ‘Cr.P.C.’). Pursuant to the said letter, this Court registered the same as Referred Trial (R.T.) No.2 of .

4. The case of the prosecution is as follows:

i) The accused - Banothu Barathi @ Lasya @ Bujji is well educated as she studied B.Sc., B.Ed. Her parents are financially sound. She is the only daughter to her parents and she has two brothers.

ii) While she was studying 1^st to 7^th Class in ZPHS, Burkacherla Village, PW.1 was her classmate and both of them fell in love and ultimately, decided to marry as they belonged to the same community. However, the parents of the accused refused, as the family of PW.1 was financially unstable.

iii) In the year 2008, the parents of accused performed her marriage with one Mr. Venkanna. Later, the accused divorced him as she had no interest in continuing the marriage.

iv) Due to marital disturbances, she suffered from mental distress that affected her health. Her parents took her to an unknown face reader, who informed them that she had ‘Sarpadosham’, which negatively affected her marriage due to which she was suffering mentally and physically, and advised them to treat her with local treatments.

v) Thereafter, the accused was shown to different local and non-local magicians/face readers, and the accused also believed that due to sarpadosham her life was not settled despite her studying up to B.Sc., B.Ed. She also searched on YouTube etc. how to get rid of such sarpadosham.

vi) Since PW.1 was still unmarried, the parents of the accused performed the marriage of the accused with him in June, 2019. The accused used to perform pooja in her in-law’s house in front of dressing table in bed room. She spent more time for performing pooja in order to get rid of said dosham as she believed the Goddess Laxmi Devi, Lord Hanuman and Shiva-Parvathulu and also lightening in pramida by pouring oil.

vii) PW.1 and his family members suspected that the accused was suffering from mental illness and accordingly took her to Psychiatrist in Khammam, who examined her and informed that she was mentally stressed and has to take treatment for some days and also prescribed some medicines to be used.

viii) During the marital life, the accused was blessed with a female child, aged 7 months as on the date of incident, calling her as ‘potti’.

ix) By seeing YouTube videos, the accused came to a conclusion that to get ride off her sarpadosham, she has to offer human blood by killing her child.

x) On 15.04.2021 at about 11:00 hours, when PW.1 went to Vijayalaxmi Hospital, Suryapet, where his elder sister was admitted for treatment, at noon hours, LW.2 - mother of PW.1 went to their agricultural fields and LW.7 - father of P