The Madras High Court Bench here has set aside the conviction and life sentence imposed by a trial court on a 70-year-old woman for burning her daughter-in-law to death. It has also modified the conviction and commuted the life imprisonment imposed on the victim’s husband to five years.
Partly allowing an appeal preferred jointly by Parvathi and her son Senthilkumar of Thiruvananthapuram Pottal in Tirunelveli district, a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran held that the life sentence imposed on Parvathi by Tirunelveli Mahila Court on October 27, 2014 could not be sustained because there were discrepancies in the three dying declarations of the victim with respect to her mother-in-law’s involvement.
They, however, held that the victim had consistently implicated her husband in all the three dying declarations and hence it would be safe to confirm his conviction. “It is not in evidence that there was a motive for the accused to cause the death of the deceased. After all, the first accused is the husband of the deceased.
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“It was only during a domestic quarrel, the first accused had set fire to the deceased. Going by the natural human conduct, it is inferable that the first accused would have been provocated by the deceased by her words and deeds.
In the said quarrel, having lost his mental balance, the first accused had set fire to the deceased,” the judges said and modified his conviction from Section 302 (murder) to Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC.
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Subsequently, while deciding the quantum of punishment that could be imposed on the convict, the judges took into consideration that he had three school-going children who were at present under the custody of the paternal grandmother whose life sentence had been suspended by the High Court at the time of admission of the appeal in 2014 itself.
“The old woman... has been working as a daily wage labourer to bring up these three children. The children are also being educated. The brother of the first accused also appeared before us. He stated that he has also been taking care of the children.... Imposing severe punishment on the first accused would be detrimental to the welfare of these three children as it would be difficult for the old woman to maintain them for long.
“The future of these three children would completely be spoiled if the convict was incarcerated for long. Having regard to these mitigating as well as aggravating circumstances, we are of the view that sentencing the first 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.
According to the Palayamkottai police, who had prosecuted the two appellants, the victim’s husband was an alcoholic and had constantly suspected her fidelity.
On March 21, 2010, the victim threw a liquor bottle out of the house and it led to a quarrel between them.
During the quarrel, he poured kerosene on her body and set her afire after his mother gave him a matchbox and asked him to burn her.