Culpable Homicide or Murder

Culpable homicide or murder

A case in the year 1886 before the Allahabad High Court.

Brodhurst J

The prisoner, Mohan, was committed to the Sessions on alternate charges under Sec.302 and 304 IPC, that is, for the offences of murder and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The assessors were of the opinion that Mohan was guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The Sessions Judge convicted Mohan of the offence of murder and sentenced him to transportation of life. From the conviction and sentence Mohan preferred an appeal before HC.

The facts of the case are: The accused suspected that his wife had, during his absence, formed a criminal intimacy with one Radkruddin. It appears that on the night, the deceased woman (Mohan’s wife), thinking that her husband was asleep, stealthily left his side with the intention of going to her paramour; that the accused (husband) took up an axe and followed her and found her in conversation with Fakruddin, and immediately killed her. Fakruddin effected his escape from the room. The accused made a desperate attempt on his own life by cutting his throat.

The two of the assessors were of opinion that accused found his wife in the act of criminal intercourse with Fakruddin. Were that proved, Mohan’s offence would be reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. But even Mohan did not in his confession urge as much in his own favour (he did not see any such intercourse). Mohan confessed that he had reason to believe that his wife had an intrigue with Fakruddin, that seeing her stealthily leave his bed at night, he armed himself, followed her, and found her sitting and conversing with Fakruddin and he therefore immediately kill her.

In Bishop’s Commentaries on the Criminal Law, Vol II 6^th ed, p711, is the following: “A man suspecting adultery followed his wife, and found her talking with her paramour; she ran off, but the latter remained. He fill on him with a stone and knife, inflicting wounds which produced death, and it was held that the offence was murder. The State v. Avery 64 NC 608.

In Kelly’s case, referred to on page 786, vol I, 4^th ed, “Russell on Crime and Misdemeanours” Rolfe B, in summing up, observed: “It is said that if a man find his wife in the act of committing adultery and kill her, that would be only manslaughter, because he would be supposed to be acting under an impulse so violent that he could not resist it.”

But I state it to you without the least fear or doubt, that to take away the life of a woman even your own wife, because you suspect that she has been engaged in some illicit intrigue, would be murder however strongly you may suspect it, it would most unquestionably be murder; and if I were to direct you, or you were to find otherwise, I am bound to tell you, either you or I would be most grievously swerving from our duty”.

Therefore I am now satisfied that Mohan is guilty of murder.

Regarding sentence of transportation of life: The prisoner, moreover, is an ignorant man, and, in my opinion, he received provocation, though not such as to bring his case within Exceptions in IPC, I therefore concur with the learned Chief Justice in recommending that his sentence be commuted to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.

Straight Offg. CJ:

I have had an opportunity of reading the observations of my brother Brodhurst J. and I entirely approve of the order he proposes. I have already, in the case of Damarua, Weekly Notes, 1885, p197, gone to the extreme limit that I am prepared to go in cases of this description, in holding upon the facts there disclosed, that the husband’s offence in killing his wife or paramour, or both, was, by reason of grave and sudden provocation, reduced from murder to manslaughter. In that case the circumstances were of such a character and description that there were reasonable grounds for the accused man believing or imagining that an act of adultery had been committed immediately before he saw his wife with her paramour; and I therefore, though not without doubt and with some elasticity, applied the principle which has been sanctioned in cases of this description by the rulings of the most eminent English Judges.

In the present instance, none of those circumstances exist. On the contrary, it is clear that the appellant (accused) having first armed himself with a weapon, followed his wife some distance, and all that he saw taking place before his attack upon her, was a meeting between her and the man with whom she had had improper relations, and some conversation passing between them.  That state of things are wholly inadequate to the resentment with which it was met on the part of the accused, and his act was altogether out of proportion to the provocation given.

The law does not sanction or approve a man taking into his own hands the duty of punishing his wife in the mode adopted by the accused, and it would be most dangerous to society if the Courts of this country were to adopt the doctrine that he might. “No man under the protection of the law is to be the avenger of his own wrongs.”  If they are of the nature for which the laws of society will give him an adequate remedy, thither he ought to resort. (Russell on “Crimes and Misdemeanours”  Vol I, 4^th ed p725).

The conduct of the deceased woman in meeting her paramour was no doubt most improper; but the meeting took place in a public place and under circumstances that, while they might arouse the accused’s anger, they cannot be regarded of such a character that they deprived him of his self-control to the extent and degree required by the law, before the nature of his crime can be reduced from murder to culpable homicide.

While it is essential that in cases of this kind the true legal nature of the act, of which the person has been guilty, should be recorded against him, the question of punishment may, I think, with propriety, be brought to the notice of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, in whose hands resides the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. I agree with my brother Brodhurst J that there are circumstances in this case which show it to be a somewhat exceptional character, and I therefore concur in his recommendation.

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