Status: Not Approved
The man already spent 13 years in prison serving life for murder. it could not prove that he had the intention to kill her, making the offence under section 302 of the IPC While this proved that he did the offence. On the contrary, the failure on the part of the complainant (victim’s brother) to notify the police of the incident from December 19, 2011 till January 1, 2012 would support the case of the defence that there is little or no evidence of offence under Section 302, much less any offence under Section 498A of the IPC. The incident took place on December 18, 2011.
HEAD: 25_Kol_SL_Srishti Lakhotia Calcutta HC reduced life imprisonment of husband convicted for setting wife on fire Kolkata: “Had he not been drunk, he ‘may’ not have committed the murder,” Calcutta High Court observed, reducing the offence from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder of a Murshidabad man who set his wife on fire for refusing to give earrings for gambling . The division bench, on the other hand, stated, “Evidence does not show that the husband had ‘intention’ to end the life of the victim… There is no evidence on record of any torture by the husband on the victim. No previous complaint was lodged by the victim and her family in that regard.
“It transpires therefrom that the convict duly took care of the children from his own previous marriage and that of the victim,” the bench observed. The judges went on to observe that the couple had children out of wedlock from their previous marriages and used to live in the same house supported by the husband’s income. Further, the victim’s daughter from a previous marriage was married when they started living together.
The case dates back to the fateful day of December 18, 2011, when convict Aktar Sk returned home in an inebriated state, asked his wife for an earring, and, on refusal, set her on fire.
She, before dying, told the doctors that the husband returned home drunk, asked for her earring for gambling, she refused, and he poured kerosene on her and set her on fire. It was stated that he was a habitual gambler.