CUTTACK: Upholding a trial court’s life imprisonment sentence to a man who murdered his mother by strangling and beheading her, the Orissa High Court has ruled that a person cannot be exempted from liability for commission of murder on the ground of ‘voluntary intoxication’.
The incident had occurred at Nathiapali village within Odagaon police limits in Nayagarh district on May 12, 2008. Rankanidhi Behera was sentenced to imprisonment for life by the court of additional sessions judge, Nayagarh on March 10, 2010. He had filed a Jail Criminal Appeal (JCRLA) in the high court the same year.
The division bench of Justice SK Sahoo and Justice Chittaranjan Dash said, “The Penal Code does not provide for any provision which can potentially protect an accused from liability for commission of any crime, much less a heinous crime like murder, merely because he chose to intoxicate himself before executing his culpable intention.”
The bench said, “The instant case has exposed this court to a very unfortunate set of facts where a son did not think twice before killing his creator, i.e. the mother. As per the above position of law, the knowledge of the appellant for commission of the crime can be well inferred, notwithstanding the fact that he was intoxicated. Furthermore, no evidence was led from the side of the defence to show that the intoxication was so intense that it affected the ability of the appellant to form intention to commit the crime.”
“Therefore, when the evidence is consistent and well-corroborated, the defence cannot be permitted to derail the prosecution case flippantly raising a superfluous plea of intoxication,” the bench ruled in the judgement which was officially released on Friday.
Rankanidhi had while recording his statement during the trial process said he was under intoxication and his mother asked him to commit her murder otherwise the villagers would create disturbance. Accordingly, he took ‘ganja’ and killed his mother by way of strangulation and then asked his son to accompany him and went to the land where he beheaded her and came with the head to his house.
The bench said, “In view of the foregoing discussions, we are of the view that the version of the child witness (son), is not only clear, cogent, reliable and trustworthy but his evidence is getting corroboration from the medical evidence and the recovery of the head of the deceased at the instance of the appellant. Therefore, the trial court is quite justified in holding the appellant guilty under section 302 of the IPC and accordingly, we do not find any merit in the JCRLA.”