Madras High Court reduced a man’s sentence from life imprisonment to five years in jail. The accused, Deepak was convicted of murdering a man under the influence of alcohol. Therefore, the court considered it a culpable homicide and not murder.
“The evidence available on record clearly shows that the accused, his uncle and the deceased had fully drunk and state of intoxication was such that he was incapable of forming a specific intent. Therefore, he is guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder,” said the High Court bench comprising of Justice R Subramanian and Justice N Sathish Kumar.
The bench added that in view of the nature of the drunkenness, the act of the accused would certainly fall within Section 299 (culpable homicide) of IPC. Accordingly, the accused is liable to be punished under Section 304(ii) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC, the bench added.
The High Court bench set aside his conviction and life sentence awarded by the trial court under Section 302 of IPC. The court sentenced Deepak to undergo five years rigorous imprisonment for offence under Section 304(ii) of IPC.
“It is not the case of the accused that he was intoxicated with the liquor without his knowledge or against his will and he was incapable of knowing the nature of the act or what he was doing was wrong or contrary to the law at the time of causing injury. Even assuming that all of them voluntarily got drunk and lost their control, the same will not absolve the accused from guilt,” the bench noted.
The incident was reported in the Trichy district in October 2017.
