india

Updated: Jan 25, 2019 23:42 IST

A woman who killed her husband has been freed of murder charges by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the husband had called her a prostitute, and that this amounted to “sudden and grave provocation” which led to his killing in a fit of rage.

A bench of justices MM Shantanagoudar and Dinesh Maheshwari said that a husband calling his wife a prostitute falls under the exception clause of Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that accounts for murder.

Due to the nature of the provocation, the court ruled that the wife should be punishable for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and not murder. It sentenced the woman and another co-accused to 10 years in jail. The minimum punishment for murder is life imprisonment.

“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 case was reported from Ooty in 2002. According to the police the deceased husband suspected his wife of having an illicit relationship with co-accused Nawaz (then 22). On October 20, 2002, the deceased had an altercation with his wife and called her a “prostitute”. He even accused her of converting their 17-year-old daughter into a prostitute.

While the couple was quarrelling, Nawaz, who was in the house on that day, came to console the husband and asked him not to fight with his wife and daughters, the prosecution said.

When the husband refused to give up, Nawaz slapped him. Later both, the wife and Nawaz throttled the husband with the help of a towel and in an attempt to conceal the offence, two burnt his body.