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Today, the distinction between the two is clear in English law, but the English law still imposes certain tests which a grave and sudden provocation has to pass before the plea can be declared as acceptable; and, some of these tests are a "hand over" of the times when two pleas, of self-defence and of grave and sudden provocation, were confused in English law. Under our law, the tests are somewhat different. The law as found in Exception (1) to Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code represents a stage in the evolution of criminal law at which the plea of grave and sudden provocation had become separate and distinct from the plea of self-defence for which we have separate provisions of the Indian Penal Code. A greater attention is paid to the subjective condition of the particular offender under our law, and conformity to the standards of an artificial or notional or imaginary reasonable man by the offender is certainly not required under our law. We are, as I understand the law in this country, not to conjecture what an imaginary reasonable man would have done when placed in the circumstances of the accused, but we have to decide whether a particular offender, in the circumstances found, could reasonably be held to have been and actually was so suddenly and gravely provoked as to be deprived of his power of self-control and, therefore, get the benefit of the exception No. 1 to Section 300 Indian Penal Code.

"The law cannot permit ill temper and other abnormalities to become assets for the purpose of committing murder, for if it did, a bad tempered man will be entitled to a lighter verdict of manslaughter where a good tempered one would be convicted for murder. (Avory, J., in 1914-3 KB 1116)."

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23. The preceding discussion of the law on the subject leads us to certain conclusions about matters which may or may not properly be considered by a Court in this country in determining whether a person accused of homicide is entitled to the benefit of the doctrine of grave and sudden provocation. Firstly, what is put forward as a grave and sudden provocation given by the victim, by means of actions, conduct, words, or gestures, must not only be sudden but also be capable of being considered grave, according to the norms or standards which govern the accused. These norms or standards represent ideas and sentiments about what is right and wrong. They may be the result of the membership of a particular social group such as a nation, a community, or even a family--or of the peculiar history and circumstances of the accused, determining the accused' s reactions towards the victim at a particular time. In every case, the test applied is an objective one in the sense that it must be capable of acceptance by reasonable men. The purely subjective or aberrant notions or outlook of the accused, even if due to his "constitutional" defects, over which he has no control, have to be disregarded.

(B) Can a defence of sudden provocation be taken up at much later stage when the cause of this provocation is embedded in past in terms of time ? Whether a cause of sudden provocation available in the year say 1900 will be available to an accused when he commits a crime say in the year 1910 i.e. after ten years of the actual cause of sudden provocation in terms of time when he actually committed the crime.

Their Lordships in paragraphs 14 and 15 of this judgment have held as under:-

"14. We have now to consider whether the circumstances proved amount to a grave and sudden provocation or not. There are innumberable cases where it has been held that where the husband surprises his wife in a compromising position with another man, it amounts to a grave and sudden provocation. In other words where knowledge that his wife is unfaithful to him comes all of a sudden to the husband, it is considered likely that he may lose his self-control and act in a wild manner. The question arises whether in the absence of actually seeing one's wife in a compromising position, the sudden appearance of a lover would amount to a sudden provocation or not. In our opinion this would depend upon the background and the circumstances of the case. The law nowhere lays down that only an ocular proof can bring a conviction of illicit intimacy. Where the circumstances can be interpreted only in one way by any reasonable person the mental picture which will form in the mind of the husband by what he saw would be just as potent and powerful to disturb his mental balance and make him lose his self-control as the ocular proof itself. In Desraj v. Emperor, 29 Cr. LJ 454 (All) the accused found his wife seated on the same cot with a man whom he had expelled from his house only a day previously and losing his self-control he killed her. It was held that he must be considered to have received a grave and sudden provocation. We do not see any difference between finding the lover inside the house and finding himself seated on the same cot. Both these circumstances in the background of other facts were sufficient to convince the absent husband about the infidelity of his wife and provoke him to an ungovernable rage. The subsequent act of killing was, therefore, not the outcome of any brutal and diabolical malignity but a consequence of human frailty to which all are liable.

15. Where the husband is living in a fool's paradise and thinks that the illicit intimacy which might have existed earlier had ceased to exist because of the changed place of residence or other circumstances and then suddenly he finds that he was mistaken in his belief and this intimacy was continuing all the time, this in our opinion would amount to a sudden knowledge which would come as a shock to him. The appellant when he came to reside in the Government House orchard felt that he had removed his wife from the influence of the deceased and there was no more any contact between them. He had lulled himself into a false security. This belief was shattered when he found the deceased at his hut when he was absent. This would certainly give him a mental jolt and as this knowledge will come all of a sudden it should be deemed to have given him a grave and sudden provocation. The fact that he had suspected this illicit intimacy on an earlier occasion also will not alter the nature of the provocation and make it any the less sudden. We, therefore, accept the contention advanced by the counsel for the defence that the circumstances established in this case prove that the appellant when he killed the deceased had lost his self-control because of a grave and sudden provocation."