“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape hundred days of sorrow”: Bombay High Court
The demon in you may awake for a single moment or then you may have reached that penultimate stage where you can ignore and forgive, this was opined by the court, in the recent matter of Pravin Khimji Chauhan v. The State Of Maharashtra [CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.978 OF 2012], at listed Bombay High Court, Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction. The judgement was pronounced on February 15th 2022, and the said proceedings were presided by a coram comprising of Justice SMT. Sadhana S. Jadhav &amp; Justice Prithviraj K. Chavan.  The facts, as presented before the court of law, are as follows. The appellant herein was convicted for the offence punishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to suffer imprisonment for life and fine of Rs.1,000/- in default to suffer simple imprisonment for 3 months by the learned Sessions Judge. Hence, this appeal. On 24 April 2011 at about 4.00 am, the appellant visited Kalamboli Police Station with blood stained clothes on his person and informed PSI that he suspected the character of his wife. There was a quarrel on that count at about 12.30 midnight, after which he killed her by assaulting her with a knife. First information was recorded in the station diary. The said information was further conveyed to the patrolling officers of the said area. The informant led the police to his house. Upon entering the house they saw the dead body of his wife in a pool of blood. There were injuries all over her body. He went to the Police and divulged the whole episode. Court, after perusal of facts and evidences, opined that “It is rightly said that ‘if you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape hundred days of sorrow’. Anger is that element of human psychology that may express itself in many ways. The demon in you may awake for a single moment or then you may have reached that penultimate stage where you can ignore and forgive. The statement of the accused recorded by the police would show that he was left with a feeling of mortification. According to him, he was left with a wounded pride, which resulted in the brutal death of his wife.” The court related the case with the principle and held that “Taking into consideration the circumstances in which the incident has occurred, it cannot be said that it is a case of murder but it is a case of culpable homicidal and actual imprisonment for 10 years would meet the ends of justice.”  Judgment reviewed by Pranav Sharma
 on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docIN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAYCRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTIONCRIMINAL APPEAL NO.978 OF 2012Pravin Khimji ChauhanAge 36 years Occupation : Service Residing at “Matoshri” ApartmentRoom No.N.D 104 Plot No.37 Sector 6 Kamotha Colony Tal. Panvel Dist. Raigad OriginallyResident of Damala Tal. Palitana Dist. Bhavnagar Gujarath.(At present in judicial custody and lodgedat Kolhapur Central Prison)…Appellant1. The appellant herein is convicted for the offencepunishable under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentencedpmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docto suffer imprisonment for life and fine of Rs.1 000 in default tosuffer simple imprisonment for 3 months by the learned SessionsJudge Raigad Alibaug in Sessions Case No.1011 vide judgmentand order dated 5th April 2012. Hence this appeal.2.Such of the facts that are necessary for the decision of thisappeal are as follows :that hesuspected the character of his wife. There was a quarrel on that countat about 12.30 midnight after which he killed her by assaulting herwith a knife. First information was recorded in the station diary. Thesaid information was further conveyed to the patrolling officers of thesaid area. The informant led the police to his house. Upon entering thehouse they saw the dead body of his wife Renu in a pool of blood.There were injuries all over her body.(ii)On the basis of the said report Crime No. 2211 wasregistered. At the trial the prosecution has examined as many as 11witnesses to bring home the guilt of the accused. The prosecution restspmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docupon the statement of the accused recorded by P.W.2 Mr. DattatrayKhade P.W.4 Narayan Air watchman of Matoshri Apartments wherethe accused and the deceased lived in Room No.D 103 P.W5. VinodKoli father of the deceased and P.W.11 Gulabrao Patil InvestigatingOfficer.3.The statement of the accused was recorded by the Police on28th April 2011 to ascertain the background in which the accused hadcommitted the offence. The accused had disclosed as follows :In the year 1999 he got married to one Aruna Khadotra.She was unable to conceive. Upon clinical examination thegynaecologist had opined that Aruna was incapable of becoming amother. Once again the marriage was dissolved before the CastePanchayat. Thereafter he had got married to RenuOn 23rd April 2011 at about 8.00 pm when he wasascending the staircase leading to his house he saw a stranger leavinghis house hurriedly. He inquired with the deceased about the same.She lost her temper and started abusing him and making indecentpmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docgestures. She had not cooked food. They had ordered food fromrestaurant. Thereafter they both had consumed alcohol to large extent.She had lost her control and had started babbling and hurling abusesat him at his mother and other family members. She referred to himas a transgender and pimp. He had tried to maintain his mentalbalance since his daughters were present. He then fed his daughtersand put them to sleep.(VI)In the meanwhile Renu had become extremely aggressive.She created a ruckus went into the kitchen and brought a kitchenknife directed towards her husband. She reiterated her slang abuses inreference to his mother and offered him the knife challenging him toshow as to whether he had the courage to assault her. It was at thisjuncture that he lost his mental balance and being totally deprived ofhis self control he mounted assault with the same knife and ventilatedhis anger by stabbing her about 20 to 25 times. He washed the knifeand the blood that had spurted on his face and went into the room toput his children to sleep. He switched on the television to put hischildren to sleep. After the children slept he called upon the father ofRenu. However the call was not replied. He also called upon the eldersister of Renu but there was no response. Finally he called his sisterpmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docand informed her about the whole episode. His sister and her husbandvisited the building after an hour but he did not allow them to come tohis house and met them in the premises of the building. Thereafter hewent to the Police and divulged the whole episode.4.P.W.2 Khade is the complainant. He has deposed beforethe Court that the accused had approached the Police Station at about4.00 am in blood stained clothes and admitted his guilt voluntarily.The accused led the police to his house. He then identified the deadbody to be that of his wife. Thereafter the accused led the Police to thehouse of the parents of the deceased at Kamothe. The Police informedthe father in law of the accused about the death of his daughter. Theparents of Renu accompanied the Police to Matoshree Apartment. Theywere in no mood of visiting the Police Station and lodge a report andtherefore P.W.2 lodged the report on behalf of them. He has proved thecontents of the said FIR which is marked at Exh.25. It is categoricallyadmitted in the cross examination that the knife with which theaccused had assaulted his wife was lying on the spot. It is alsoadmitted that the crime was registered on the basis of the disclosurestatement made by the accused. The station diary entry is at Exh.26.pmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.doc5.P.W.4 Narayan Kumar Navasir Air was working as awatchman in Matoshree Apartment Kamothe for about more than 9months. He was therefore acquainted with the accused and his wife.According to him he was on night duty on the day of incident. Atabout 3.00 am the sister brother in law and paternal aunt of accusedhad visited the building. They expressed their desire to visit the houseof the accused however the aunt of the accused was unable to climbthe staircase and therefore she did not go to his house. The sister andbrother in law had been to the house of the accused however after 10minutes all of them descended the staircase and went outside thebuilding. The accused then requested P.W.4 to open the gate and thenproceeded on his motorcycle wearing blood stained clothes. After halfan hour Police had visited the building. Being the watchman hereiterated the said fact to the Secretary of the building. There is nomaterial omission or contradiction in his depositions.6.P.W.5 Vinod Koli happens to be the father of the deceased.He has admitted that he learnt about the death of his daughter at 4.00am when the Police accompanied by the accused visited his house andpmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docinformed him about the same. After post mortem the dead body washanded over to the father of the deceased to perform last rites uponthe deceased. He has admitted that there were disputes between hisdaughter and his son in law.7.P.W.6 Dr. Basavraj Lohare had performed autopsy on thedead body of Renu. He had noticed 26 incised and stab wounds. Thecause of death was “multiple stab injuries with injury to both lungs liver and spleen”. The accused was examined on 24th April 2011 byP.W.6 at about 10.45 am at Rural Hospital Panvel.It is pertinent tonote that the accused had also sustained incised wounds on his righthand palmer aspect ulnar border right hand dorsal aspect over thenareminence and between the web spaces of thumb and index finger. Thesaid certificate is at Exh.36 and the post mortem notes of Renu are atExh.37.8.The learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that infact the act committed by the accused was not premeditated and hewas provoked by his wife and therefore he had lost his self control andamounted assault upon her and the same shall be considered with apmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docsympathetic view. It is also submitted that the deceased had pointedthe knife towards the accused in the course of avoiding the attack hehad sustained injuries on his palmer aspect. Therefore it can be saidthat the act was committed in self defence. 9.Per contra the learned APP has submitted that the numberof injuries caused to the deceased by themselves would show thebrutality and the violent mind of the accused who deserves nosympathy. It is submitted that the defence of the accused is anafterthought and requires no consideration. 10.With the help of the learned counsel for the appellant andthe learned APP we have gone through the papers meticulously. Thefirst and foremost observation is that the incident has been brought tolight by none other than the accused himself who had gone to thePolice Station and set the law into motion because the reality wasstaring at his face and he was sure that there was no escape. Theaccused is indeed the author of the 26 injuries caused to Renu. It issurprising that at the trial the accused has pleaded not guilty and hiscontention in his statement under section 313 of Cr.P.C. is that he haspmw on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docbeen falsely implicated. In the facts of the case the said defence wouldrecede into background. It is surprising that the Investigating Agencyhas made no efforts to get the statement of the accused recorded undersection 164 of Cr.P.C. It is also not known as to how the prosecutionhas not recorded the substantive evidence of the sister and brother in law of the accused. In fact the statement made to his sister wouldamount to extra judicial confession and therefore it was necessary toexamine the sister of the accused. The accused had set the law intomotion. It was a case of custodial death. He had even led the Police tothe house of his father in law and had disclosed about the death of hiswife at his hands.11.Now coming to the circumstances in which the incidenthad occurred it would be necessary to see that in fact the marriage ofthe accused as well as the deceased had failed on two occasions beforethey got married to each other. After examining the phone call recordshe had started suspecting the honesty of his wife in their maritalrelationship. At the time of incident the accused as well as thedeceased had consumed alcohol. It is true that the Police has notinvestigated this statement made by the accused as if to say that it waspmw1 on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docan open and shut case. That at the time of incident they werequarreling. The tempers were high. It is the case of the accused thatthe conduct of his wife at the relevant time was beyond reproach.According to him he had maintained his cool for quite sometime.However he lost it when she brought the knife from the kitchen andprovoked him to hurt her if he could. Probably the chauvinism in himhas arisen. She had expressed disgust and abhorrence at his verymanliness and had forgotten for a moment that he is a father of theirtwo daughters.12.It is rightly said that “if you are patient in one moment ofanger you will escape hundred days of sorrow”. Anger is that elementof human psychology that may express itself in many ways. The demonin you may awake for a single moment or then you may have reachedthat penultimate stage where you can ignore and forgive. Thestatement of the accused recorded by the police would show that hewas left with a feeling of mortification. According to him he was leftwith a wounded pride which resulted in the brutal death of his wife. 13.At the same time it is necessary to consider the submissionpmw1 on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docof the learned APP. The number of injuries inflicted on the deceasedwere as many as 26 blows. In every alternative case where we aredealing with a murder of the wife at the hands of her husband in amoment of grave and sudden provocation by the wife the husbandviolently attacks his wife. There is physical violence there is sexualviolence however this sort of physical violence is less seen amongstwomen even in a moment of anger and in all probabilities it is themother in a woman which supersedes her element of physical violence.There could be psychological violence by women. In the present case in that moment of anger both the spouses had almost forgotten thetwo children who were hardly three year and 1½ year old at the timeof incident. The mother died and the father was thrown to the gallowsby his own act.14The Indian Penal Code would define such an act in thegiven circumstances not as murder but as culpable homicide notamounting to murder. The offence was committed in a heat of passionbut the accused had acted in a cruel and unusual manner. 15The statement of the accused given to the Police beforepmw1 on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.docregistration of crime inspires the confidence of the Court and thecircumstances spelt out by him in which the incident has occurredneeds to be taken into consideration. 16Section 304 part I of the Indian Penal Code reads asunder :304. Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting tomurder.—Whoever commits culpable homicide notamounting to murder shall be punished with1[imprisonment for life] or imprisonment of eitherdescription for a term which may extend to ten years andshall also be liable to fine if the act by which the death iscaused is done with the intention of causing death or ofcausing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death orwith imprisonment of either description for a term whichmay extend to ten years or with fine or with both if theact is done with the knowledge that it is likely to causedeath but without any intention to cause death or to causesuch bodily injury as is likely to cause death.17The fact that the accused has sustained incised injury onhis right palmer aspect would show that he had indeed held the knifon the sharper side when there was an attempt to attack him. Adefence injury cannot be ruled out.pmw1 on 15 02 2022 on 15 02 apeal 978.12.doc18The conduct of the accused also needs to be appreciatedunder section 8 of the Indian Evidence Act. He had made no attemptto cause disappearance of evidence. He had called upon the father andsister of the deceased. He has also called upon his aunt sister andbrother in law and admitted the guilt before he approached the policestation. 19Taking into consideration the circumstances in which theincident has occurred it cannot be said that it is a case of murder but itis a case of culpable homicidal and actual imprisonment for 10 yearswould meet the ends of justice. Hence we pass the following order: ORDER(i)The Appeal is partly allowedof the Indian Penal Code and is sentenced tosuffer Rigourous Imprisonment for 10 years. Fine ismaintained.(iv)The appellant is entitled to set off for the period alreadyundergone(SMT. SADHANA S. JADHAV J)pmw1 