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Nawaz v. The State Rep. by Inspector of Police (with connected appeal)

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 72Decided 22 Jan 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 1941 of 2010
Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari

Background

A husband suspected his wife of having an illicit relationship with another man and, in a public quarrel, called his wife and daughter "prostitutes." The accused who allegedly had the affair slapped the husband in response, after which the husband was throttled to death and his body burnt and dumped elsewhere to conceal the crime. Both the wife and her alleged partner were convicted of murder and destruction of evidence by the Trial Court and High Court, based substantially on an extra-judicial confession made weeks later to a village teacher.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court accepted that the extra-judicial confession was genuine and that the accused had conspired to conceal the body, upholding the conviction for destroying evidence. However, it found that the killing was not pre-planned murder but occurred in the "heat of the moment" after sudden and grave provocation - being called a "prostitute," a term the Court recognised as deeply humiliating in Indian social context - which deprived the accused of self-control. It therefore downgraded the conviction from murder (Section 302 IPC) to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 Part I IPC), and reduced the sentence to ten years' rigorous imprisonment.

Lesson Learnt

Under Indian criminal law, a killing committed under sudden and grave provocation - rather than with premeditation - can be treated as a lesser offence than murder, even where the act of killing itself was deliberate in the moment.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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