The Punjab And Haryana High Court in the case observed and has granted bail to the woman who is being accused of allegedly killing her 9-year-old daughter in pursuit of her life insurance policy observing that it is highly improbable that a mother would kill her own daughter for an amount of Rs. 90,000.
The bench headed by Justice Sandeep Moudgil in the case observed and has reiterated that apart from the right to life enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, it has to be borne in mind that ‘bail is a rule and jail is an exception.’
The court in the case made the said observations in the second bail plea moved by the mother, who was being booked for murder under Section 302, Section 120-B, Section 182, Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Thus, the FIR was seemingly initiated based on information provided by one H.C. Jatinder Singh with regards to the death of the 9-year-old girl. It has also been suggested by the post-mortem report that the death of her was due to asphyxia resulting from smothering, which was deemed non-natural and sufficient to cause death in ordinary circumstances.
However, as per the prosecution, the mother and stepfather had conspired to kill the child for the life insurance policy amount of Rs. 90,000 by strangulation using a ‘chunni’.
The counsel appearing for the petitioner argued before the court that the charges against her were based on a highly improbable story, given the mother-daughter relationship and the lack of incriminating evidence.
Further, it has also been indicated in the custody certificate that the petitioner had been in detention for over two years, with the trial proceedings almost concluded.
It was also argued before the court that the petitioner had a clean record, making it unlikely that she would commit such a crime for a relatively small sum of money.
The court in the case considered the principles of criminal jurisprudence, the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and the petitioner’s clean record. the court while considering the facts and circumstances of the case clarified that the said decision did not reflect any opinion on the merits of the case.
The counsel, Advocate Amandeep Singh Rai appeared for the petitioner. The counsel, Rajiv Verma, DAG for Punjab.