The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday modified the life sentence awarded to a man by a lower court in Tirunelveli to seven years of rigorous imprisonment on the ground of ‘sustained provocation.’
The accused Marimuthu from Tirunelveli filed a criminal appeal against the judgement of the lower court.
He was convicted for murdering a relative for allegedly having an affair with his wife. He was said to have smashed the head of his relative with a grinding stone.
It could be presumed that the act of adultery would have lingered in his mind tormenting him, a Division Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and N. Anand Venkatesh observed. This made him lose his self control and cause death of his relative. There were fights between the couple. The court is convinced that the case falls under the exception 1 of Section 300 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code on the ground of ‘sustained provocation.’
It modified the sentence of the lower court from life term to rigorous imprisonment for seven years. It sentenced him for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
