Erode woman acquitted of killing 5-year-old daughter

The division bench, comprising Justice S Nagamuthu and Justice N Authinathan, while allowing the appeal moved by V Shobana against her conviction by the Fast Track Mahila Court in Erode, said “We regret to say that the trial Court in the instant case has not even cared to have regard that the accused has got a right to be defended by a competent lawyer. There is no indication that the judge offered any legal assistance through legal aid to the accused who is a poor woman.” 

Also, noting that the judge’s failure to offer time to both the public prosecutor and the defence counsel to argue the case and blindly rushing to finish the case was ‘unwarranted’ and ‘unfortunate’, the Bench said, “the judge on the day itself pronounced the judgment sentencing the poor woman to life imprisonment though there is absolutely no evidence against her. Thus, closely scrutinising all the evidences let in by the prosecution, we find that there is no convincing evidence to hold that it was this accused who killed the child.” 

As per the prosecution, Shobana owing to frequent quarrels with her husband had started living with her parents in Nambiyur village in Erode District with the child. 

It was alleged that on July 8, 2015 she gave food mixed with pesticide known as phorate to the child resulting in her fainting. 

Shobana informed her neighbours that her child suddenly took ill and with her brother’s help rushed her to a private hospital, where the child was declared dead. 

The Nambiyur police registered a case and the trial court took up the case on May 6, 2016 and convicted her for murder. The Bench while acquitting shobana also held that “Had poison been mixed with food, as it is stated by the prosecution, the smell of Organophosphorous poison would have emanated which would not have missed the nose of the prosecution witnesses and the undigested food should have been present in stomach.”