HC commutes wife killer’s sentence to 8 yrs
Fashion designer Manish Malhotra in collaboration with Make-A-Wish Foundation, designed a princess dress to fulfill the wish
Granting relief to an accused charged with his wife’s murder, the Bombay high court reduced his sentence from life imprisonment to eight years of jail term. The court also observed that the murder was not pre-planned and had occurred in the heat of the moment.
A division bench of Justice V.K. Tahilramani and Justice P.D. Kode was hearing an appeal of a murder convict, Balkrishna Pingale, challenging the order of a lower court in Pune dated April 30, 2008 sentencing him to life imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, the accused had a drinking problem and on most nights would return home in an inebriated state. On the day of the incident, he returned home in a drunken state and asked his wife to serve him a meal. As she was busy, she asked her daughter to serve him instead. This angered the accused. In a fit of rage, he poured kerosene on his wife and set her on fire. She was rushed to a nearby hospital.
Later, while being transferred to a different hospital, the victim even went to the police station in an ambulance and filed a report against her husband. She said that her husband had fought with her and had then set her on fire. She had also given similar statements at all hospitals she was admitted to. “We find that all the dying declarations are cogent and consistent, hence, we have no hesitation in relying on the same,” noted the bench.
However, the lawyer of the accused had argued that the case would fall under Section 304 II of the IPC, as the accused had attacked her in a fit of rage and had not pre-planned her murder.
Accepting the argument, the bench observed, “It is also seen that the incident occurred after the sudden quarrel. Heat of passion requires that there must be no time for passion to cool down. In this case, the evidence shows that the accused was in fury on account of the verbal altercation between them. The accused did not come to the spot armed with a weapon, but had poured kerosene, which was available at the spot.”
The bench then modified the lower court’s judgment and convicted the accused under Section 304 II of IPC and reduced the sentence to eight years.
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