JUDGMENT

1. The appellant Ibrahim has been convicted of the murder of his wife Mt. Nur Bibi and has been sentenced, under Section 302, I.P.C., to suffer the penalty of death. There is ample evidence on the record that, on the afternoon of 1st. June 1927, at about 6 p.m., She prisoner attacked his wife with a hatchet and inflicted upon her three wounds including, one on the neck, which resulted in the death of the victim immediately afterwards. Indeed, he himself admits that he did assault his wife with a hatchet and thereby caused her death. He, however, seeks to reduce the offence of murder to one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder by invoking the plea of grave and sudden provocation. He states that his wife had contracted an illicit intimacy with one Ismail, and that on the afternoon in question when he (prisoner) returned to his house from his fields he found the paramour embracing and kissing the woman. Thereupon he lost his self-control and assaulted the erring wife with an axe and caused her death. The paramour, however, managed to make good his escape.

2. The question for determination is whether the culprit upon whom the onus rested has succeeded in establishing his plea. Now, it may be conceded that Mt. Nur Bibi was on terms of illicit intimacy with Ismail, and that her husband had asked her to give up her immoral relations with the paramour. There is, however, not a scintilla of evidence that Ismail was found on that afternoon embracing Mt. Nur Bibi or that he did any other act which would amount to grave and sudden provocation. The witness Ranga Singh, who lives in the same compound as the prisoner, was an eyewitness of the whole affair. He deposes, that on the afternoon in question when he saw the husband attacking his wife be shouted out to Ismail, who was at that time coming from his own house, and asked him to come in and render help in rescuing the woman. He also describes the immediate cause which led to the assault. He says that the husband asked the wife to sever her connexion with her paramour Ismail, but that she declined to give up her lover.

3. Thereupon, there was a quarrel between the husband and the wife in the course of which the prisoner appears to have lost his temper and committed the assault in a fit of anger.

4. While we cannot hold that the accused received any grave and sadden provocation which would bring his case within the ambit of Excep. 1 to Section 300, I.P.C., we are of opinion that the wife's persistent immorality coupled with her refusal to sever her connexion with the lover provoked the husband and prompted the assault which resulted in her death. In these circumstances we do not think that the extreme penalty of the law should be exacted in this case. While upholding the conviction we accept the appeal so far as to reduce the sentence of death to one of transportation for life.