Juggankhan vs State of Madhya Pradesh

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 171 of 1962

Decision Date: 10 August 1964

Coram: S.M. Sikri

In the case titled Juggankhan versus State of Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 10 August 1964. The opinion was authored by Justice S. M. Sikri, who was joined on the bench by Justice Subbarao and Justice K. The judgment is reported in 1965 AIR 831 and 1965 SCR (1) 14, with a citator reference D 1968 SC 829 (13). The legal issue involved alleged violations of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, specifically sections 304A, which deals with death caused by rash or negligent act, and section 302, which pertains to murder.

The headnote records that the appellant, who was a registered homoeopathic medical practitioner, had advertised that he treated a condition known as Naru or Guinea worm. At the invitation of this advertisement, a woman identified as D visited the appellant’s clinic. The appellant examined her and prescribed a treatment consisting of twenty‑four drops of stramonium mother tincture together with a leaf of dhatura. After ingesting the medication, D became restless and ill. Various antidotes were administered but failed to relieve her symptoms. D vomited twice; however, the vomitus was not preserved for forensic analysis. Later that evening D died. The autopsy surgeon noted that a definitive cause of death could be determined only after the results of a chemical analysis were obtained. Accordingly, the surgeon sent the stomach with its contents and samples of liver, spleen and kidney to a chemical examiner. The chemical examiner reported that no poison was detected in any of the specimens. The appellant contended that the prosecution had not proved that death resulted from dhatura poisoning, but both the trial court and the High Court rejected this argument and upheld his conviction under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

On appeal by special leave, the Supreme Court held that, based on the facts, the conclusion of the lower courts that death was caused by dhatura poison could not be said to be erroneous. The Court found the appellant guilty under section 304A of the Indian Penal Code, describing his conduct as a rash and negligent act of prescribing poisonous medicines without adequately studying their possible effects. The Court further held that, on the facts, section 299 of the Indian Penal Code did not apply, and therefore the appellant was to be acquitted of the charge under section 302. The Court distinguished the earlier decision in John Oni Akerele v. The King, A.I.R. 1943 P.C. 72, in arriving at its conclusion. The judgment was delivered by Justice Sikri and addressed the appeal against the High Court of Madhya Pradesh’s confirmation of the conviction and sentence under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

The prosecution’s case, which had been accepted by both the Sessions Judge and the High Court, was set out as follows. The appellant was a registered Homoeopathic medical practitioner under the Madhya Pradesh Homoeopathic and Bio‑chemical Practitioners Act, Madhya Pradesh Act 26 of 1951. Around May 1960 he began residing and practising at Akodiya Mandi. He issued a pamphlet that advertised, among other treatments, a remedy for Naru (guinea worm). Attracted by this advertisement, Smt Deobi, a young woman of about twenty years who had suffered from guinea worm for six weeks, went to the appellant’s clinic on 30 May 1961 accompanied by her uncle Chisaji (identified as P.W. 3), her mother Daryaobai (P.W. 4) and her aunt Gulab Bai (P.W. 6). The visit occurred at approximately eight o’clock in the morning. The appellant examined the patient and administered to her twenty‑four drops of mother tincture of stramonium together with a leaf of dhatura. Shortly after ingesting the medicine the patient became restless and ill; despite the administration of various antidotes she did not obtain relief. She vomited twice, but the vomitus was not preserved for analysis. By about five o’clock in the evening the patient had died. Dr Patodia, identified as P.W. 7, performed an autopsy on 31 May 1961 and reported that the precise cause of death could be determined only after the results of a chemical analysis were received. He sent to the chemical examiner samples of the stomach with its contents as well as pieces of liver, spleen and kidney. The chemical examiner later reported that no poison could be detected in any of the examined specimens.

The appellant’s counsel seized upon the absence of a detected poison and argued that the prosecution had failed to prove that death resulted from dhatura poisoning. Both the Sessions Court and the High Court, however, rejected this contention. The appellant further maintained that the dose administered was not fatal and challenged the calculations made by the Sessions Judge regarding the amount of poison that might have been present in the leaf allegedly given to the deceased. He also contested the courts’ concurrent findings that a dhatura leaf and twenty‑four drops of mother tincture of stramonium had indeed been administered to the victim. His ultimate argument was that, on the basis of the established facts, the matter did not constitute murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code but rather an offence under section 304A of the same Code. Upon reviewing the evidence, the Court was unable to determine that the lower courts’ finding concerning the administration of the stramonium drops and dhatura leaf was manifestly incorrect. Those courts had relied upon the testimony of Chisaji, the deceased’s uncle, the patient register maintained by the appellant (P.W. 10), the prescription written by the appellant, and the identification of the appellant’s handwriting by Shyam Swaroop Mishra (P.W. 14). The Court considered this reliance appropriate. It also concurred with the lower courts in concluding that death resulted from poisoning, noting that Dr Patodia could not specify which poison caused the fatality.

The medical expert testified that, although he could not pinpoint the exact poison that caused the woman’s death, he was able to affirm that the fatal outcome resulted from exposure to an irritant substance and that such an irritant could have been dhatura, belladonna, or any other poisonous material. According to the testimony of Chisaji, identified as witness P.W. 3, the deceased was a healthy woman who had not taken any medication prior to arriving at the clinic. She remained at the clinic from nine o’clock in the morning until the time of her death. Apart from the antidotes that were subsequently administered, the only substances she received were the items specifically noted by the trial court: twenty‑four drops of stramonium and a single leaf of dhatura. Shortly after ingesting these substances, she began to feel restless and fell ill. Based on these facts, the courts below correctly concluded that the death was the result of dhatura poisoning and there is no basis to deem that conclusion erroneous. The remaining issue for determination was the classification of the offence attributable to the appellant. The question was whether the appellant should be convicted under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with murder, or under section 304A of the same code, which addresses causing death by negligence. After reviewing the evidence, the Court formed the opinion that the appellant’s conduct warranted conviction under section 304A rather than section 302. In the witness testimony of Dr Choudhary, identified as P.W. 17 and a registered medical practitioner, the doctor stated: “In the opinion of Dr Modi, the author of Medical Jurisprudence, a dose of twenty to twenty‑and‑a‑half grains of dhatura is fatal, and according to Dr Taylor, about sixteen grains constitute a fatal dose. Consequently, I can say that if a fresh dhatura leaf six inches long and four inches wide is given together with twenty‑four drops of stramonium mother‑tincture of homeopathic preparation to any patient, the combined effect of the two may be fatal, especially if the patient is allergic or idiosyncratic to stramonium, then such a dose must be fatal.” The learned Sessions Judge relied upon this statement to assess what quantity might be lethal. However, the Court examined the original sources cited by Dr Choudhary. In Modi’s Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology (14th edition), page 713, the author writes that the fatal dose is uncertain and relates an experiment in which four datura fruits, pounded and mixed with flour, were given to six men, four of whom died. He notes that a ripe fruit averages about two drachms in weight and contains seeds weighing approximately one and a half drachms, that one hundred dried datura seeds weigh between twenty and twenty‑and‑a‑half grains, and that a decoction made from one hundred and twenty‑five seeds of datura stramonium proved fatal to a woman. In Taylor’s Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence (11th edition), page 551, the author describes the toxicity of dhatura, explaining that the active principle comprises a mixture of hyoscine, atropine and hyoscyamine, which is extremely toxic; the plant contains roughly one per cent alkaloids, rendering it highly dangerous. Taylor further observes that the seeds are especially poisonous because they contain a higher concentration of alkaloids than other plant parts, and that death may occur even when the entire seed mass is expelled. He gives an example of a two‑year‑old child who swallowed about one hundred seeds of stramonium weighing sixteen grains, manifesting symptoms within an hour. The Court therefore concluded that although Dr Choudhary’s summary of the authorities was not an exact quotation, the cited literature did not support a precise fatal dose figure, and the evidence did not establish that the quantity prescribed by the appellant was necessarily lethal. Consequently, the conviction under the more severe charge of murder could not be sustained, and the appropriate conviction was under section 304A, reflecting a culpable act that caused death without the intention required for a murder charge.

In the evidence, it was shown that a child who swallowed approximately one hundred seeds of the plant died within twenty‑four hours, even though twenty seeds were expelled by vomiting and eighty were eliminated by purging. The testimony explained that enough alkaloid to be lethal had been absorbed from the whole of the seeds and entered the bloodstream. Another incident, which formed the basis of a trial in Osnabruck, involved a woman who gave her mother a decoction made from bruised seeds of the thorn‑apple, estimated to be about one hundred and twenty‑five seeds. The mother soon exhibited delirium, flailed her arms and spoke incoherently, and she died within seven hours.

Dr. Patodia, identified as witness 7, testified that he could not state with certainty the exact quantity of tincture stramonium that would inevitably cause death. Nevertheless, he expressed the opinion that a half‑ounce of tincture stramonium, which far exceeds the normal medicinal dosage that he defined as ten to thirty drops, would be sufficient to bring about death. Based on this testimony, the Court concluded that it could not be established that the amount prescribed by the appellant was necessarily a fatal dose.

The Court also examined the finding of the learned Sessions Judge who had concluded that a dhatura leaf weighed forty grains and contained fifteen grains of poison. The Court found this conclusion to be unsupported. The witness Chisaji described the leaf as large, but also noted that it was green and fresh. Witness Laxminarayan Vaidya, identified as witness 13, measured the largest leaf and reported a length of seven inches and a breadth of three and a half inches, growing on land that had received manure. Dr. Choudhary, witness 17, offered a hypothetical calculation, stating that if a fresh dhatura leaf measured six inches in length and four inches in breadth and weighed forty grains, it would consist of twenty‑seven grains of moisture and thirteen grains of solid stramonium, which he identified as the poison. The Court held that such hypothetical evidence should not be used to determine the actual amount of solid stramonium present in the leaf allegedly given to the deceased.

Consequently, the Court observed that the poisonous content of the leaf had not been convincingly proved, and therefore the prosecution had failed to demonstrate that the dose administered to the deceased was necessarily lethal. Dr. Choudhary further stated that, to his knowledge, none of the homeopathic systems of medicine employ stramonium mother tincture, potenised stramonium, or a green dhatura leaf for the treatment of guinea‑worm. Dr. R. K. Singh, witness 16, conceded that mother tincture stramonium might be used for the removal of foreign bodies, although this use is not specifically mentioned in the Homeopathic Materia Medica, and emphasized that homeopathic treatment is based on symptoms. On the basis of these facts, the Court concluded that Section 299 of the Indian Penal Code was inapplicable. It could not be held that the appellant administered the stramonium drops and the dhatura leaf with knowledge that his act was likely to cause the death of the deceased. Accordingly, the Court held that the appellant must

The Court acquitted the appellant of the charge under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The appellant had also been charged alternatively under Section 304A. Counsel for the appellant argued that the elements required for Section 304A were not proved because the conduct was neither rash nor negligent. The Court rejected that argument. It noted that both stramonium and dhatura leaf are poisonous substances. The appellant was a registered homoeopath, and within the practice of homoeopathy a dhatura leaf is never administered in the manner alleged; the appellant himself acknowledged this point. The record showed that, except perhaps in the Ayurvedic tradition, no recognized system of medicine employs a dhatura leaf as a cure for guinea‑worm. The Court observed that the appellant appears to have prescribed the medicines without carefully examining the likely consequences of giving twenty‑four drops of stramonium together with a dhatura leaf. The Court held that prescribing poisonous drugs without such consideration constituted a rash and negligent act. Counsel for the appellant cited the Privy Council decision in John Oni Akerele v. The King, a case arising from West Africa, in an attempt to show that criminal negligence had not been established. The Court distinguished that case, pointing out that the doctor there was a duly qualified medical practitioner who gave an injection of Sobita, a preparation containing sodium bismuth tartrate, and that the allegation concerned an excessive dose. The Privy Council had concluded that criminal negligence was not proved in that scenario. While agreeing that caution is required before attributing criminal negligence to a professional acting within his vocation, the Court stated that, even with such caution, the appellant’s conduct was clearly rash and negligent. Consequently, the Court found the appellant guilty of the offence under Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code. The Court set aside the conviction under Section 302, substituted it with a conviction under Section 304A, and imposed a sentence of two years of rigorous imprisonment. The conviction was therefore altered. (1) A.I.R. 1943 P.C. 72.