MODEL PENAL CODE ANNOTATED

PALANI GOUNDAN v. EMPEROR

1920 Madras 862
India
 

 . . . The accused struck his wife a blow on her head with a ploughshare, which, though not known to be a blow likely to cause death, did, in fact, render her unconscious and believing her to be dead, in order to lay the foundation of a false defence of suicide by hanging, the accused hanged her on a beam by a rope and thereby caused her death by strangulation, and it was held by the Full Bench that the accused was not guilty of either murder or culpable homicide not amounting to murder as the original intention was not to cause death but only to cause injury and the second intention was only to dispose of a supposedly dead body in a way convenient for the defence which the accused was about to set up. . . .