New Delhi: A woman, who in a fit of rage killed her husband after he called her a ‘prostitute’, has been absolved of murder charges by the Supreme Court.
According to a bench of justices MM Shantanagoudar and Dinesh Maheshwari, a husband calling his wife a prostitute would “amount to sudden and grave provocation” and fall under the exception clause of the section 300 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is murder.
And since the death was the result of this provocation, the court said, the wife should be punishable for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and not murder. It sentenced the woman and another co-accused to ten years of jail term.
“The deceased provoked the accused by uttering the word ‘prostitute.’ In our society, no lady would like to hear such a word from her husband. Most importantly, she would not be ready to hear such a word against her daughters. The incident is a result of a sudden and grave provocation by the deceased,“ the court held.
The husband suspected his wife of having an illicit relationship with co-accused Nawaz. On the day of the incident the deceased had an altercation with his wife and called her a ‘prostitute.’ He even accused her of converting their daughter into a prostitute.
While the couple was quarrelling, Nawaz — who lived on the first floor of the same building — came to placate the husband and asked him not to fight with his wife and daughter. When the husband refused to give up, Nawaz reportedly slapped him. Later both, the wife and Nawaz, strangulated the man with a towel and burnt the body to hide the crime. The police arrested the two on the basis of an extra-judicial confession recorded by a school teacher 40 days later.
While the trial court and HC convicted the accused for murder and destruction of evidence, the top court spared them of murder charges.