‘No murder intent’: Calcutta HC commutes hubby’s life term in wife’s blaze death

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has commuted the life sentence of a man convicted for setting his wife ablaze, reducing his conviction from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Prasenjit Biswas sentenced the man to ten years of rigorous imprisonment, holding that there was no premeditated intention to kill.

The appellant, Rabindra Murmu, was earlier convicted by a Hooghly sessions court for murdering his wife, Anita Murmu, in November 2014. The prosecution had alleged that Rabindra set his wife on fire at their residence in Harit-Bagar Badh village under Dadpur police station after she refused to give him money to buy liquor. The woman succumbed to burn injuries four days later in a district hospital.

Several prosecution witnesses, including the victim’s parents and brother, testified about long-standing domestic abuse and frequent quarrels over money. Witnesses stated that Rabindra poured kerosene on his wife and set her ablaze after she refused his demand for money. Independent witnesses corroborated the family’s version and confirmed the strained marital relationship.

However, the high court noted that while the evidence established Rabindra’s role in the incident, it did not indicate that he had intended to kill his wife. The court referred to the victim’s dying declaration, in which she stated that her husband had tried to rescue her by pouring water and also took her to the hospital. Medical records showed that the accused brought the victim to the hospital himself.

The bench observed that the act was committed on the spur of the moment during a domestic dispute and not as a result of any pre-planned motive. Given the absence of intention to kill, the court held that the offence fell within the ambit of culpable homicide.

In addition to the ten-year sentence under Section 304 Part II of the IPC, the court upheld the three-year sentence under Section 498A for cruelty. Both sentences will run concurrently. The court directed that the period already spent in custody by the convict be set off against the new sentence.