After child's evidence, SC upholds woman's life term for killing hubby

Going by the witness statement of her 12-year-old son, the Supreme Court has upheld the life sentence of a woman for killing her husband.

“We cannot lose sight of the fact that the child witness was not deposing against another family member or a stranger, but his own mother. It would call for courage and conviction to name his own mother, as the child was grown up enough to understand the matter as a witness to a murder,” a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Navin Sinha said.

The apex court rejected the contention of the appellant Anita that her husband was killed elsewhere and his body was later dumped at home to implicate her, saying it is “too far-fetched for consideration”.

The court agreed with the state counsel’s argument that seeking corroboration of a child witness is not an invariable rule of criminal jurisprudence, as it found no reason to interfere with the conviction and life term for the woman and two others for killing her husband as pronounced by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Applauding the evidence of the child witness, the court said both the high court and the trial court found his evidence reliable and convincing.

“The witness has clearly mentioned that his mother was present in the room when the assault was taking place and she asked him to leave the room on the bidding of one of the assailants,” it said.

“We do find it a little strange, according to normal human behaviour, that at the dead of the night, the appellant, after witnessing assault on her own husband, did not rush out and send her son to the house of one of the witnesses,” the bench further noted.

The fact that she did not create a commotion, or shout for help, reinforces the prosecution case as such a behaviour is unnatural, the bench  said.