The Madras High Court Bench here has modified the conviction imposed by a trial court on a 70-year-old man, for having stabbed his daughter’s mother-in-law to death because the latter objected to her son setting up a separate household with his wife, from murder to culpable homicide and commuted his life sentence to five years of rigorous imprisonment.
Partly allowing an appeal preferred by the convict S. Durairaj of Kovilpatti in Thoothukudi district, a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran also reduced the fine imposed on him by the Mahila Court, on October 9 last, from Rs.5,000 to Rs.1,000 with a default sentence of four weeks and ordered refund of the excess amount already collected from him.
The judges rejected all the contentions raised by the convict assailing his conviction and held that the prosecution had proved beyond all reasonable doubt that it was he who took a knife to the victim woman’s house on November 11, 2010 and stabbed her to death due to a strained relationship between his daughter, son-in-law and the latter’s mother.
However, they held that the act committed by him would fall only under Section 304 (i) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and not Section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code since he had committed the offence after losing his mental balance and self control due to grave and sudden provocation by the victim woman, Shanmugathai.
Stating that the convict had gone to the victim’s house on the day of the incident only to sort out the differences between his daughter and her husband through talks, the judges said that the absence of his son-in-law in the house had led to a quarrel between the convict and the victim and ended up in homicidal violence.
“Going by the natural human conduct, it is inferable that in the said quarrel, the deceased should have provoked the accused. Having lost his mental balance, the accused had taken out the knife and stabbed the deceased. Thus, in our considered view, the provocation made by the deceased must have been grave and sudden. “Now, turning to the quantum of punishment, the accused is an old man aged 70 years. It is reported that he is already ailing. He has been in jail for a long time. He has got no bad antecedent. The occurrence took place in 2010. It was out of a sudden quarrel. After the occurrence, the accused has not committed any other crime.
“Having regard to these aggravating as well as the mitigating circumstances, more particularly the age of the accused, we are of the view that sentencing the accused to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years and to pay a fine of Rs.1,000 would meet the ends of justice,” the judges observed.
