A woman has been punished by the life imprisonment by Bombay High court for the murdering her daughter in law.
A division bench of Justices P D Kode and V K Tahilramani, while quashing the lower court order, held her guilty for ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder and said that as per the evidences produced before the court, it showed that she had no intention to kill the daughter-in-law.
The order was passed during the hearing of an appeal filed by woman Mangala Thorat. The court held her guilty under section 304 II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of Indian Penal Code and sentenced her to six years rigorous imprisonment.
As the appellant has already served five years of the jail term,she would be required to spend one more year behind the bars.
The high court bench, in its recent order, said that though there was no doubt that the appellant had set her daughter-in-law Neelam on fire but immediately thereafter she doused the flames.
It has been observed by the that, ‘This conduct cannot be seen divorced from the totality of the circumstances in this case. Very probably, the appellant could not have anticipated that the act done by her would escalate to such a situation that Neelam might die. If the appellant had ever intended Neelam to die, she would not have immediately extinguished the fire in an effort to save Neelam.”
‘In view of the evidence on record, we are inclined to think that the appellant had no intention to kill Neelam. But unfortunately, the situation slipped out of control and it went to a fatal extent. Thus, in the facts and circumstances of this case, we are of the opinion that the case would fall under section 304 II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC and not section 302 (murder) of IPC,’ the bench noted.
