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Showing contexts for: grave provocation in Yashwant @ Ishwar Das Kirmi vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 28 July, 2017Matching Fragments
5. We are not inclined to accept the arguments of learned counsel for the appellant. In the present case, the deceased and two other persons had gone to the village, where the deceased met with the appellant and he had demanded money, which was given to the appellant. At that time, there was quarrel between the appellant and the deceased. Thereafter, the appellant told the deceased that he would pay the money at his house and made a request to come to his house. When the deceased and other persons reached the house of the appellant, the appellant went inside the house and had taken out a gun and opened fire, which had hit the deceased below neck. The appellant had sufficient cooling period. There was no interaction or the words at the time of incident when the appellant had opened fire at the deceased. The Apex Court in the case of B.D. Khunte vs Union of India and others, reported in (2015) 1 SCC 286 has held as under in regard to grave provocation within Exception 1 to Section 300 of IPC:
â12. What is critical for a case to fall under Exception 1 to Section 300 IPC is that the provocation must not only be grave but sudden as well. It is only where the following ingredients of Exception 1 are satisfied that an accused can claim mitigation of the offence committed by him from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder:
(1) The deceased must have given provocation to the accused. (2) The provocation so given must have been grave.
(3) The provocation given by the deceased must have been sudden.
(4) The offender by reason of such grave and sudden provocation must have been deprived of his power of self-control; and (5) The offender must have killed the deceased or any other person by mistake or accident during the continuance of the deprivation of the power of self-control.
13. Applying the above tests to the case at hand there is no gainsaying that an able bodied youthful Jawan when physically assaulted by his superior may be in a state of provocation. The gravity of such a provocation may be heightened if the physical beating was meant to force him to submit to unnatural carnal intercourse to satisfy the superior's lust. The store room incident involving the appellant and the deceased is alleged to have taken place when the deceased had bolted the door of the store room to keep out any intruder from seeing what was happening inside. By any standard the act of a superior to humiliate and force his subordinate in a closed room to succumb to the lustful design of the former was a potent recipe for anyone placed in the appellantâs position to revolt and retaliate against the treatment being given to him. What may have happened inside the store room if the appellant had indeed revolted and retaliated against the unbecoming conduct of the deceased is a matter of conjecture. The appellant or any one in his position may have retaliated violently to the grave peril of his tormentor. The fact of the matter, however, is that the appellant appears to have borne the assault without any retaliation against the deceased-superior and somehow managed to escape from the room. The critical moment when the appellant could perhaps loose his cool and equilibrium to take retaliatory action against the deceased was thus allowed to pass uneventfully, grave and sudden provocation for any such action notwithstanding.
14. All that the evidence proves is that after the said incident the appellant was seen crying and depressed and when asked by his colleagues he is said to have narrated his tale of humiliation at the hands of the deceased. There is no evidence to prove that after the incident aforementioned the appellant had continued to suffer a prolonged spell of grave provocation. By their nature such provocation even when sudden and grave cool off with passage of time often lapsing into what would become a motive for taking revenge whenever an opportunity arises. That appears to have happened in the present case also for the appellant's version is that he and his colleagues had planned to avenge the humiliation by beating up the deceased in the evening when they all assemble near the water heating point. That apart, the appellant attended to his normal duty during the day time and after the evening dinner, went to perform his guard duty at 2100 hrs. All these circumstances do not betray any signs of grave leave alone grave and sudden provocation to have continued haunting the appellant and disturbing his mental equilibrium or depriving him of self control that is an essential attribute of grave and sudden provocation to qualify as a mitigating factor under Exception 1 to Section 300 IPC. â