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7. It was submitted that taken together, the appellants could, at the highest, be convicted of the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part I IPC since it was neither their intention to kill the deceased nor was the injury sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature – which was borne out by the circumstance of him surviving the attack for 20 days. It was submitted that the appellants should be granted the benefit of a modified conviction to one, under that provision. Justifying the submission, the learned counsel stated that there was a prior history of disputes between the appellants and the deceased. The deceased’s conduct in calling for a heavy JCB machine, to get the tank on the property repaired, was a sudden provocation, given the history of bad blood, which the prosecution witness PW1 in fact, deposed to. Therefore, the exception to Section 300 IPC was attracted to the facts of this case.

Illustrations
(a) A, under the influence of passion excited by a provocation given by Z, intentionally kills. Y, Z"s child. This is murder, in as much as the provocation was not given by the child, and the death of the child was not caused by accident or misfortune in doing an act caused by the provocation.
(b) Y gives grave and sudden provocation to, A, A, on this provocation, fires a pistol at Y, neither intending nor knowing himself to be likely to kill Z, who is near him, but out of sight. A kills Z. Here A has not committed murder, but merely culpable homicide.

23. Again, on the question of whether the facts of this case are covered by the first exception to Section 300, i.e., that the accused/appellants did what they were accused of (which is to attack and inflict grave injuries that led to the death of Vrindawan), because of their loss of self-control, on account of a grave and sudden provocation – the answer must be the same, which is that the provision (Exception 1 to Section 300) cannot be attracted. Apart from a long-standing pre- existing dispute, what caused “sudden” provocation to the appellants, has not been shown by them. Neither did they lead any evidence, to fall within Exception 1, nor did the evidence on record substantiate such a contention. Speaking of what is grave and sudden provocation, this court in K.M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra13 explained the standard of reasonableness for applying the “grave and sudden” provocation, in the following manner:

85. The Indian law, relevant to the present enquiry, may be stated thus:
(1) The test of "grave and sudden" provocation is whether a reasonable man, belonging to the same class of society as the Accused, placed in the situation in which the Accused was placed would be so provoked as to lose his self-control. (2) In India, words and gestures may also, under certain circumstances, cause grave and sudden provocation to an Accused so as to bring his act within the First Exception to Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code. (3) The mental background created by the previous act of the victim may be taken into consideration in ascertaining whether the subsequent act caused grave and sudden provocation for committing the offence. (4) The fatal blow should be clearly traced to the influence of passion arising from that provocation and not after the passion had cooled down by lapse of time, or otherwise giving room and scope for premeditation and calculation” 1962 SCR Supl. (1) 567