Strangulating Pregnant Wife To Death Not Exceptionally Violent Or Brutal: Bombay High Court Declares Husband Eligible For Remission

Strangulating a pregnant wife to death over unfulfilled dowry demands, is not exceptionally violent or brutal, held the Bombay High Court at Nagpur, while granting remission to a police personnel, convicted for killing his pregnant wife.

A division bench of Justices Nitin Sambre and Vrushali Joshi held that the petitioner - Pradipsingh Thakur was eligible for remission under the Government Resolution (GR) issued on March 15, 2010, and therefore, categorised him for 22 years imprisonment - a category, which does not apply on offences where offender exhibited exceptional violence or brutality.

"Of course, the act of strangulation, which is attributed to the petitioner is a violent act but whether such an act can be termed as one causing death with brutality or with exceptional violence, is required to be looked into. ....we are of the view that it cannot be inferred that the petitioner has caused the murder of his wife with exceptional violence or that with brutality," the bench held in its order passed on November 26.

We are required to be sensitive to the nature of injuries suffered by the deceased. In this case, the victim suffered two injuries; one ligature mark on neck and another nail abrasion on right side of neck, the judges noted.

"The aforesaid injuries have also prompted us to form an opinion that the case of the petitioner cannot fall under exceptional circumstances so as to make him liable to undergo 26 years of imprisonment for murdering his wife with exceptional violence or brutality. As such, the contention canvassed by the Additional Public Prosecutor that the petitioner can be categorized under category 2(c) of Annexure-I appended to the Government Resolution dated March 15, 2010 is liable to be rejected," the bench said while refusing to hand over 26 years imprisonment to Thakur.

The judges were dealing with a plea filed by Thakur seeking his categorisation in category 2(b) of the GR of March 2010, by which he would be entitled to 22 years of imprisonment under his conviction of life imprisonment.

The petitioner was convicted in 2001 and since then been serving his life sentence and thus sought remission.

The State had turned down his request in September 2018 on the ground that he was a police personnel at the time of the incident and also the fact that his wife was pregnant.

The judges, however, refused to accept this argument on the ground that the GR intends to grant remission to all categories of convicts except few specifically carved out therein.

"Just because the petitioner was an employee of Police department and the fact that he murdered his pregnant wife by itself would not disentitle him to get the benefit of remission which is provided under the legal provision. Rather there is no separate category carved out as an exception to the normal Rules of remission provided under Section 432 of the Criminal Procedure Code for a Police personnel committing heinous crime of murdering his pregnant wife," the judges underscored.

With these observations, the bench held that the petitioner was entitled to serve 22 years of imprisonment.

Appearance:

Advocate YP Bhelande was appointed to appear for the Petitioner.

Additional Public Prosecution NR Tripathi represented the State.

Case Title: Pradipsingh Thakur vs State of Maharashtra (Criminal Writ Petition 38 of 2024)

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Bom) 620

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