Suspicion of infidelity doesn't give licence to kill spouse:SC

Suspicion of infidelity does not give a spouse the licence to murder the life parter, the Supreme Court today said while upholding the life sentence of a man who killed his wife suspecting her of having an extra- marital affair.

"It is to be borne in mind that suspicion pertaining to fidelity has immense potentiality to commit irreversible wrongs as it corrupts the mind and corrodes the sense of rational thinking and further allows liberty to the mind to pave the path of evil.

"... It quite often impures mind, takes it to the devil's den and leads one to do unjust acts than just deeds. In any case, it does not give licence to commit murder," a bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said.

The court upheld the conviction of the man on the basis of circumstantial evidence. It also relied on the statements of the wife's family members who said her husband suspected her of having an extra-marital affair and often beat her.

"... In some cases, it may not be difficult to establish motive through direct evidence, while in some other cases, inferences from circumstances may help in discerning the mental propensity of the person concerned. In the case at hand, as is noticed, there is material on record which suggests that there was some ire that had swelled up in the mind of the accused to extinguish the life spark of the wife," the bench said.