'Appeals To Our Judicial Conscience': Kerala High Court Commutes Sentence Of Man Who Killed Uncle Citing Mitigating Circumstances

The Kerala High Court recently commuted the sentence of a man who murdered his paternal uncle for assaulting his mother upon finding that there existed several mitigating circumstances in the case. 

Considering all the relevant factors of the case, a Division Bench of Justice Vinod K. Chandran and Justice C. Jayachandran deemed it fit to partly allow the appeal and lower the sentence imposed on the accused:

"We find that special circumstances exist mitigating the gravity of the offence, which appeals to our judicial conscience and discretion to show clemency to the accused in the matter of sentence... We are therefore persuaded to limit the substantive punishment to the period of imprisonment already undergone by the accused, which is more than 3 years ... simultaneous with enhancing the fine component to Rs. one lakh."

The trial court had convicted the accused under Section 302 IPC and imposed a life sentence on him. Aggrieved by the same, he had moved the High Court with an appeal. 

The appellant was represented by Senior Advocate P. Vijayabhanu and he defended the case citing that it was an instance of private defence. However, the Court did not agree with the same: 

"Even when this Court is fully conscious of the binding precedents to the effect that the force applied by a person exercising the right of private defence cannot be gauged in golden scales, still, we are unable to persuade ourselves to hold that the accused had acted only within the legally permissible contours of the right."

The Court noted that there was a grave and sudden provocation since the deceased assaulted the accused's mother and noted that there was only a single stab injury.

It was found that the accused never intended to cause the death of his uncle and he had even accompanied the deceased to the hospital. As such, it was ruled that he had no criminal intent to murder his uncle, so only the offence of culpable homicide was attracted.

It was also noted that and that the accused was only of the tender age of 19 years at the time of the commission of the crime. Therefore, partly allowing the appeal, the sentence awarded was reduced from life imprisonment to the three years of incarceration that he had already undergone.

The Bench observed that the accused was pre-eminently concerned about repelling the aggression made by the deceased, sans any intention, whatsoever, to cause the death of the accused.

Therefore, the act fails to meet the requirements of Sections 302 and 300 of IPC and only attracts the offence under the third limb of Section 299 (culpable homicide).

As such, the sentence was commuted and the appeal was partly allowed. 

Case Title: Rajeesh v. State of Kerala

Click Here To Read/Download The Order