Ramanathapuram
When the country celebrated the International Women’s Day with the campaign theme of ‘press for progress’, a court here absolved a woman of the charge of murdering her husband for which she was facing trial.
Passing orders on the five-year-old case on Thursday, Additional District and Sessions Judge D. Lingeswaran held that the woman, M. Malathi (33) of Dhanushkodi, stabbing her husband with a knife when he attempted to attack her with a cudgel “was an act on the spur of the moment” and would not fall under the definition of murder. The incident took place in June, 2013 and the man died on the way to the hospital.
Since the element of intention either to cause death or injury was absent in this case, the woman could be punished only under 304 part II of the IPC (culpable homicide), the judge said, and awarded imprisonment for 76 days, the number of days she had already served and set her at liberty, considering the fact that the accused, who has remarried, is mother of three children, including an eight-month-old infant.
Stating that the woman was continuously tortured by her first husband, who doubted her fidelity, the judge said poet Subramania Bharati had said the virtue of chastity should be common to both the genders but the thinking of the patriarchal society had not changed a bit.
The judge regretted that “we celebrate the International Women’s Day with a slogan of ‘press for progress’ but progress for women in society is a far distance to reach.”
In this case, the woman accused was not educated, fully dependent on her husband for survival and tolerated the abuses and harassment of not only her husband but other relatives, the judge said.
“The pressure inside her had suddenly erupted and the sudden outburst of an oppressed woman had caused an unexpected consequence,” he said.
“Had she been educated well and independent, she could have made her choice of getting away from the matrimonial bond (after her husband suspected her fidelity) and married another man of her choice,” the judge said. Dependence, poverty and illiteracy had forced her to remain in the shackles.
While on bail, she had married another person and given birth to two children, the judge said. “The court took all the above social factors into account while awarding the sentence,” the judge added.
