HC confirms life term in case of murder under intoxication

Cuttack: The Orissa high court in a order mentioned that a person cannot be exempted from liability for commission of murder on the ground of ‘voluntary intoxication’, while confirming a trial court’s imprisonment for life sentence in a case of matricide. A two-judge bench gave the ruling in the case of Rankanidhi Behera, who severed his mother’s head at Nathiapali village under Odagaon police station limits in Nayagarh on May 12, 2008.The additional sessions judge, Nayagarh, sentenced him to imprisonment for life on March 10, 2010. He filed a jail criminal appeal (JCRLA) in HC the same year. In the recorded statement produced before the trial court, Rankanidhi stated that he was under intoxication and his mother asked him to kill her.Accordingly, he took ‘ganja’ and strangulated his mother and asked his son to accompany him to a piece of land, where he beheaded her and returned home with her head.Observing that “the instant case 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,” the bench of Justice S K Sahoo and Justice Chittaranjan Dash said, “It is needless to mention that a person cannot seek exemption from liability for commission of murder on the ground of ‘voluntary intoxication’. The penal code does not provide for any provision which can 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.”Accordingly, the bench said 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 an 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 July 24 judgment on JCRLA.“In view of the foregoing discussions, we are of the view that the version of the child witness, 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, ” the bench said.