Slug Mp High Court Wife Thousand Husbands Grave Provocation Ruling

A wife’s remark that she could “keep a thousand husbands” like her own amounted to an indirect attack on his worth and dignity, the Madhya Pradesh High Court said as it reduced a man’s life sentence for the killing of his wife to seven years.

A Division Bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and Avanindra Kumar Singh observed that the remark constituted “grave and sudden provocation” capable of depriving a person of self-control, though it upheld the finding that the husband was responsible for his wife’s death.

“Similarly, when a wife refers to her husband that ‘she can keep a thousand husbands like him’, it is [an] indirect/oblique reference to [the] worthlessness of the husband, meaning he has no value as a human being or a husband. Therefore, it can be termed as a sudden and grave provocation,” the Bench observed.

The case arose from the killing of a seven months pregnant woman in Chhindwara district in July 2021. According to the prosecution, the husband informed both the victim’s relatives and the police that he had killed his wife with a stone after she allegedly made the remark during an argument. Medical evidence showed she died from multiple injuries, including fractures to her ribs and sternum.

While affirming the conviction for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the high court said the evidence did not establish a premeditated attack. It noted that the accused had used a stone found at the spot, immediately informed the police and the victim’s family, and made no attempt to conceal the offence. The Bench also found that the prosecution had not proved repeated blows with multiple stones, observing that only one stone had been seized and subjected to forensic examination, while some injuries could also have been caused by sharp-edged stones at the riverbank.

Concluding that the facts did not attract Section 304 Part I IPC, the Bench altered the conviction to Section 304 Part II.

“Considering the overall facts and circumstances of the case, while maintaining the conviction for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, we find that the case would not fall under Section 304 Part-I of IPC but would fall under Section 304 Part-II of IPC,” the court held, sentencing the appellant to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment and imposing a fine of Rs 1,000, with an additional one year of rigorous imprisonment in default of payment.