Mumbai, May 7: Hearing an appeal, the Bombay High Court has quashed and set aside a judgement of a lower court which had awarded life sentence to a man in 2008 for killing his brother with a sickle over property dispute.
Instead, the High Court, found the appellant guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 304 part I IPC and sentenced him to eight years imprisonment.
Justices P D Kode and Vijaya Tahilramani were of the opinion that the appellant Haridas Mahale had the intention to kill his brother and hence with a heavy blow he used a sickle to cause death.
This offence falls under section 304 part I of IPC which takes into account the intention of the accused to kill a person, the judges noted in a recent order while sending the appellant to jail for eight years.
The Court took into account the version of Lila, an eye witness to the incident and sister-in-law of appellant Haridas Mahale.
Lila told the court that on April 30, 2006, Mahale, his brother Mohan and father came home for lunch. When Lila was in the kitchen, she heard her husband Mohan tell his brother Haridas that he would not give him any share from their property.
This infuriated Haridas and he went to the other room and brought a sickle with which he gave a blow to his brother behind his ear. Mohan suffered a deep injury in the brain and was taken to hospital where he passed away.
A police complaint was lodged against Haridas in Harsul police station in Nashik district. He was arrested and tried for murder. On July 30, 2008, the Nasik sessions court awarded him life imprisonment on charge of killing his brother.
The appellant's lawyer Abhaykumar Apte argued that the assault on Mohan occurred on the spur of the moment without any premeditation and on account of sudden provocation. Haridas gave only one blow with the sickle to Mohan and then he stopped the assault.
Apte argued that Haridas had the knowledge that his act may cause death but did not have the intention to kill Mohan.
Hence the offence would fall under section 304 part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).
“From the evidence on record, it appears that the appellant was provoked by the words of his brother Mohan who told him that he would not give any share in the property to him. However, we are not prepared to accept that the case would fall under Section 304 Part-II of IPC,” the judges said.
“In our view, the case would fall under Section 304 Part-I of IPC because we are of the opinion that the appellant did not just have the knowledge that his act is likely to cause death as contended by Apte but in fact, the appellant intended to cause death of Mohan,” the Judges said.
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