BAMADEV PRADHAN Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant stands convicted under section 302 of Indian Penal Code (for short, the Code) with having committed the murder of his wife Darpani on April 17, 1985 at Nuamanitri in the district of Dhenkanat by dealing a blow on her person by means of an axe (MO.I,) and sentenced there under to undergo imprisonment for life by theT Court of Session which had accepted the version of the prosecution based on the clear and acceptable evidence of the sole witness to the occurrence, namely, P.W.3, who had spoken about the assault by the appellant on his wife by means of an axe and that of P.Ws. 4 and 5, two neighbours of the appellant, who were independent witnesses having no axe to grind against the appellant, with regard to an extra- judicial confession made by the appellant that be had killed his wife by an axe.

(2.) Mr. B.S. Misra, the learned counsel for the appellant, has not seriously challenged the unassailable findings of facts recorded by the trial Court, but bas urged that the appellant had not committed an offence of murder punishable under section 302 of the Code, but had committed the act while being deprived of his power of self-control by the grave and sudden provocation offered by the deceased and had the knowledge that by his act, he was likely to cause the death of the deceased and could thus be convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder coming under the second part of section 304 of the Code.

(3.) The test of grave and sudden provocation is whether a reasonable man belonging to the same Glass of society as the accused, placed in the situation in which the accused was placed, would be so provoked as to lose his self-control. In India, words and gestures may also, under certain circumstances cause grave and sudden provocation to an accused so as to bring his act within the first Exception to section 300 of the Code (See K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra1).