Three convicts were awarded life sentence by the Supreme Court for murdering an aged man who thwarted their attempt to molest his daughter, by rejecting the contention that the offence was committed in the heat of passion as the victim gave choicest of abuses to them.
A bench of justices R M Lodha and C K Prasad set aside the judgement of Orissa High Court which had altered the conviction of the trio from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder for which they were given eight years jail term.
The bench said that offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder did not arise in the case as the convicts had sufficient time to cool down and it cannot be said that the crime was committed in a heat of passion.
"In the case in hand, the convicts had entered the room of the daughter of the deceased at midnight, molested her and the poor father, perhaps because of his age, could not do anything other than to abuse the convicts.
"He gave choicest abuses but did not fight with the convicts. Verbal abuses are not fight as it is well settled that at least two persons are needed to fight. Therefore, this ingredient (of sudden fight) is not satisfied."
The apex court restored the decision of the trial court which had found the trio guilty under section 302 of IPC for the murder of the girl's father.
It did not accepted the findings of the high court that the prosecution had failed to prove that the convicts had any prior motive or pre-meditation to kill the victim.
It also rejected high court's observation that it appears that they went to the victim's house to commit sexual act and on being abused by the victim in obscene language, they got provoked and attacked him in a fit of anger and on the spur of the moment, without any prior planning or design.
