Specific Exceptions to section 300

EXCEPTIONS TO MURDER

Culpable homicide is not murder when the case is brought within the five exceptions to Section 300 of the IPC. But, even though none of the said five exceptions are pleaded or prima facie established on the evidence on record, the prosecution must still be required under the law to bring the case under any of the four clauses of Section 300 of the IPC to sustain the charge of murder. If the prosecution fails to discharge this onus in establishing any one of the four clauses of Section 300 of the IPC, namely, 1stly to 4thly, the charge of murder would not be made out and the case may be one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder as described under Section 299 of the IPC.

The exceptions provided for under section 300 are: (1) grave and sudden provocation; (2) private defence; (3) acts of public servants; (4) sudden fight and (5) consent.

These exceptions to section 300, unlike the “general exceptions”, do not exonerate the wrongdoer. They only operate as mitigation factors.

Exception 1—Grave and Sudden Provocation

The following conditions must be complied with in order to invoke the benefit of this clause:—

• The deceased must have given provocation to the accused.
  • The provocation must be grave.
  • The provocation must be sudden.
  • The offender, by reason of the said provocation, should have been deprived of his power of self control.
  • The accused killed the deceased during the continuance of the deprivation of the power of self-control.
  • The offender must have caused the death of the person who gave the provocation or that of any other person by mistake or accident.

It may be stated that the defence of provocation is further limited by the following three provisos. That is to say, the Exception is not available:—

• If the accused courts (gives) provocation or uses it as an excuse for assaulting another; or
  • If the act is legally done by a public servant in the exercise of his legal right as a public servant; or
  • If the act is done in the exercise of the right of private defence.

Comments-

• “Grave provocation” within the meaning of Exception 1 to section 300 is a provocation where judgement and reason take leave of the offender and violent passion takes over.
  • “Sudden” means an action which must be quick and unexpected so far as to provoke the accused.
  • The provocation should be both grave and sudden. If the provocation is sudden but not grave, or grave but not sudden, then the offender cannot avail of the benefit of this exception.

In KM Nanavati v State of Maharashtra, The Supreme Court laid down the following postulates relating to grave and sudden provocation:

• 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.
• 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, IPC.
• 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.
• 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.

The Supreme Court in Muthu v State of Tamil Nadu, on 5 November 2007 held that constant harassment may lead to deprivation of the power of self-control amounting to grave and sudden provocation.The accused Muthu angered by a ragpicker, Shiva’s daily habit of throwing waste into his shop, took out a knife and stabbed him to death. Differentiating between a pre-planned crime and a crime resulting from a fit of rage, the Court said this was not a murder but culpable homicide not amounting to murder punishable under section 304, IPC. In so doing, the Apex Court placed littering several notches higher on the scale of offences.

Exception 4—Sudden Fight

The requisites of the fourth Exception are that:

• the murder should have been committed without premeditation;
  • it should have been committed in a sudden fight;
  • it should have been committed in the heat of passion;
  • it should have been committed upon a sudden quarrel and
  • it should have been committed without the offender having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner.

All these conditions are required to be proved for bringing the case within the ambit of the fourth Exception to section 300, IPC.

In the case of first Exception there is total deprivation of self-control because of provocation, while in case of fourth Exception, there is only that heat of passion which eclipses his sober reason. There is provocation in fourth Exception as in first Exception, but the injury caused is not the direct consequence of that provocation. There is mutual provocation and aggravation, and it is difficult to apportion the share of blame which attaches to each fighter. Both the parties, notwithstanding with the fact who stuck the first blow and who initiated the quarrel, are put on equal footing for their subsequent conduct and guilt therefore. Heat of passion requires that there must be no time for the passions to cool down. The words “sudden fight” or “upon sudden quarrel” implies the absence of previous deliberation or determination to fight.