Man ‘kills’ drunk wife for not making food on festival, K’taka HC says ‘culpable homicide, not murder'; releases him

Bengaluru: Karnataka High court on Sunday acquitted a man facing court trials for allegedly murdering his ‘drunk’ wife who had refused to prepare food for him.

The court said called the incident a culpable homicide, not murder saying the man had no intention of killing his wife. The order for his release from jail was passed.

As per the information, the couple Suresha and Radha were married with two children at the time of incident. It was second marriage for both as Suresha had separated from his first wife Meenakshi while Radha, too, had separated from her husband Nanjaiah.

The incident occurred when Suresha came back from work on a festival day in 2016 to find that his wife Radha had not celebrated by that time and had not cooked food either. She was addicted to alcohol and was sleeping. Angry over this, Suresha fatally hit her with a heavy object which led to her death.

He was arrested on charges of murder and thereafter the trial court convicted him and awarded life imprisonment in November 2017.

Later, Suresha who hailed from Mudigere in Chikkamagaluru district approached the High Court with the appeal in 2017.

A Division Bench of Justice K Somashekar and Justice T G Shivashankare Gowda heard the appeal.

The judges overturned this decision and said that the prosecution was not able to explain the intention of the accused to commit the murder.

However, there was provocation which enraged the accused to hit his wife which led to her death.

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As found from the prosecution evidence, the woman did not prepare the food, that prompted and enraged the accused to take such a drastic step all of a sudden, he found a heavy object from the house and inflicted injuries as part of punishment and there was no intention on his part to cause death, said the High Court.

Therefore, the court held that the alleged act of the accused comes within the purview of exception-1 to Section 300 of IPC where the death of the woman was ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder.’

Modifying the conviction and order of sentence of the trial court, the High Court convicted him under section part-II of IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) instead of section 302 of IPC (murder).

The period of six years, 22 days undergone by the accused in incarceration is sufficient for the offence punishable under section 304 Part-I of IPC, the High Court said and directed the jail authorities to set him at liberty forthwith, if he is not required in any other case.

(With input from agency)

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