HOLIA BUDHOO GOWARA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Holia, son of Budhoo Gowara of mauza Gondegaon was tried before the Additional Sessions Judge, Seoni, on a charge of murder of his wife Mt. Yamuni. He has been found guilty under Section 304, Part I, Indian Penal Code and sentenced to 7 years rigorous imprisonment. He has appealed against this conviction and sentence. There is also a counter-appeal by the Provincial Government that the accused should have been convicted on the charge of murder under Section 302, Indian Penal Code. be to appeals are disposed of by this judgment.

(2.) Holia lived with his wife, Mt. Yamuni in Gondegaon. On 27 November 1947 the accused assaulted Mt. Yamuni in the house and killed her and threw the spear with which he had assaulted her in a well from where it was later recovered by the police. The parents of Mt. Yamuni had come to stay with Holia about two days before this occurrence and they wanted that Yamuni should be sent with them to their house. The accused was not willing to send his wife to her parents and on the day of oacurrence in the morning Yamuni's father and mother prepared to go away. The father had proceeded ahead and Yamuni a mother Mt. Naja was alao going out when Yamuni Beems to have insisted that she would also go with her parents. It is in the evidence of Mt. Naja (p. W. 6) that the accused was enraged at her insistence on going and taking up a spear he violently assaulted Mt. Yamuni and killed her. In the committing Magistrate's Court as also in the Sessions Court the accused admitted that he had killed Mt. Yamuni. Before the Sessions Court he even pleaded guilty to the charge but the learned Additional Sessions Judge decided to hold the trial in order to find out if the case was not within one of the exceptions to Section 300, Indian Penal Code, and whether any extenuating circumstan-ces existed in the case.

(3.) The plea taken on behalf of the accused was that he did not want his wife to go with her parents because their child had been recently vaccinated and was running temperature. Ha says that the wife was very insistent on going and even abused him filthily and gave him a kick also. That he was pat out by this conduct of hers and in a fit of rage he took up the spese and killed her. The Additional Sessions Judge has accepted this statement of his and has found that he committed the murder upon grave and sudden provocation given by the wife and the case was therefore brought within exception l to 8. SCO, Indian Penal Code.