Hyderabad High Court: Life-term jail only in case of premeditated murder

HYDERABAD:  In any incident that results in the death of a person, the accused will be sentenced to imprisonment for life if the act is done with an intention to kill. But the sentence will be modified by limiting it to a period up to 10 years if the accused has no intention or knowledge that his act will cause death of the deceased.In one such case before the Hyderabad High Court, an accused filed an appeal challenging the verdict of the second additional sessions judge, Suryapet, Nalgonda district which found him guilty of the offence punishable under Section 302 of IPC (punishment for murder) for causing the death of his 65-year-old mother-in-law and, accordingly, convicted and sentenced him to undergo life imprisonment.

The case of the prosecution is that the appellant-accused is the son-in-law of the deceased woman. After the death of his wife he wanted to contract a second marriage. Whenever he beat his children and abused them in a drunken state, his mother-in-law intervened and warned him severely. On the fateful day, when he was beating his children (two daughters), his mother-in-law intervened. Bearing a grudge against her, he beat her with a pestle and caused injuries on her head due to which she died. Hearing the cries of the children, a neighbour went to their house and saw the appellant running away from his house with a pestle in his hand after committing the crime.

Basing on the complaint lodged by the son of the deceased, the police registered an FIR against the appellant for the offence punishable under Section 302 of IPC.  The complainant and the neighbour were the circumstantial witnesses in the case.The counsel for the appellant-accused argued that the appellant had no intention to kill his mother-in-law. After the death of his wife, he took to drinking alcohol and some other vices, and used to beat his children. 

Whenever his mother-in-law visited his house, the appellant used to abuse her by saying that when he wanted to marry again, she prevented him from doing so. In view of the statements of his daughters, who were eyewitnesses to the killing, the trial court ought to have convicted him of the offence punishable under Section 304 of IPC (whoever commits culpable homicide not amounting to murder) instead of Section 302 as the appellant had no intention of killing his mother-in-law, he argued.

A division bench of the High Court, comprising justices Suresh Kumar Kait and U Durga Prasad Rao, opined that the alleged incident had taken place all of a sudden and was not premeditated, and when the mother-in-law questioned his high-handedness against the children, he could not tolerate that and hit her due to which she died.

 The bench partly allowed the appeal by modifying the life sentence by limiting it to the period of sentence already undergone by the appellant who had already undergone imprisonment for a period of seven years and two months. The bench directed the jail authorities to set the appellant at liberty if he was not required in any other case.