Snake a deadly murder weapon, says SC; denies bail

Snake a deadly murder weapon, says SC; denies bail

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:07.10.2021

Accidental snakebite deaths may be common in India, but the Supreme Court on Wednesday said it is a heinous crime to use a poisonous snake as a ‘weapon’ to murder an elderly woman and refused to grant bail to the accused in a case from Rajasthan.

A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli was dealing with this unique case.

A woman, married to an army man who was posted away from his hometown, was regularly talking to her paramour over phone, which was objected to by her mother-in-law. Her father-inlaw too was away as he worked outside his hometown. Irked by the nagging reprimands of her MIL, the daughter-in-law in conspiracy with her paramour and his friend, procured a poisonous snake from a snake charmer in Jhunjhunu district. Wrapped in a bag, she kept the snake near her MIL’s bed on the night of June 2, 2018. The elderly woman was found dead in the morning. The hospital she was taken to declared she died of snakebite.

Snakebite deaths being a normal occurrence in Rajasthan and many other states, the Jhunjhunu police took time to discover an unusual number of phone call exchanges, over 100, between the daughter-in-law and her paramour during the fateful night. It also found that these two have been in constant touch for a long time over the phone.

The police arrested the three — the woman, her paramour and his friend — and traced down the snake charmer from whom the ‘murder weapon’ was procured. The snake charmer turned approver and gave a statement under Section 164 CrPC before a magistrate that the paramour had procured the snake from him.

Arguing for the paramour, advocate Aditya Kumar Choudhary told the bench that his client was not present at the crime scene. “How would he be a part of the conspiracy when no one can predict whom the snake will bite? Just leaving a poisonous snake in the room does not mean the snake knew whom it should bite. The police have not authenticated the call records. The man is behind bars for more than a year.” To that, the bench said, “It is very common in Rajasthan to use poisonous snakes for committing murders. You have used an innovative method to commit a heinous crime. You were allegedly part of the conspiracy and provided the murder weapon (snake) after procuring it from the snake charmer. You do not deserve to be released on bail at this stage.” There are around five million snakebite cases worldwide every year causing around 1,00,000 deaths. India accounts for almost half of them. A WHO report said India had an estimated 1.2 million snake bite deaths (averaging 58,000 every year) in the period between 2000-2019.

“It is very common in Rajasthan to use poisonous snakes for committing murders”