K.M. Nanavati v.

State of Maharastra
Nanavati was a naval officer who was married to Sylvia. They had recently moved to
Bombay recently where they met Ahuja through mutual friends, at a party.
6th 18th April: Nanavati was away on official work.
19th 21st April: Sylvia, Nanavati & his brother went on a holiday. Nanavati noticed that
Sylvia was acting strange.
27th April: Nanavati confronted Sylvia about her behaviour and she confessed to having had
an affair with Ahuja. Earlier in the day, he had bought tickets for a movie for his family. After
this confession from Sylvia, he drops her and their children off at the movie and goes to his
ship under false pretences. He takes a semi automatic revolver from there and goes to Ahujas
office, doesnt find him there and then goes home. He entered Ahujas bedroom and
questioned him about whether he was going to marry Sylvia and take care of their children.
Ahuja made disparaging remarks about Sylvia in response. A struggle ensued, during which
Nanavati shot Ahuja, twice. He later went and turned himself in to the police.
Basically the main things that you need to keep in mind are:
1) Nanavati keeps talking about how he did not go there to kill Ahuja, but to make sure his
children are looked after in this whole situation.
2) The court entirely rejects Nanavatis claims of lack of pre-meditation with a lot of
evidence-based conclusions.
3) Would Sylvias confession be considered to fall under exception 1 of S. 300?
No, because while one might consider it grave it isnt sudden enough for the kind of
actions that Nanavati later took. They decided this because of the huge time lag
between the confession and the murder, as well as, the kind of actions and
conversation that Nanavati indulged in clearly indicated that he had regained and
possible lost self-control.
4) Would Ahujas remarks about Sylvia be considered to fall under this exception?
The court rejected this claim as well because his actions leaned clearly towards premeditation, complete self-control, etc.
5) The most important part of this entire judgement is paragraph 153, which lays down the
test/guidelines for whether something can be considered grave and sudden provocation:
Would a reasonable man, belonging to the same class of society as the accused,
placed in the situation that the accused was, have gotten provoked enough to lose
self-control?
Words and gestures may be, under certain circumstances, cause grave and sudden
provocation. Remember that the court states that this particular point would only
apply to India because they have looked at other similar judgements from England
that have clearly held that words and gestures would usually not be considered to
constitute grave and sudden provocation.
The mental impact that any previous act of the victim would possibly have on the
accused can be taken into consideration when you are deciding whether the
subsequent act caused grave and sudden provocation.
The fatal blow must be such that one can draw a clear link between that and the
influence of passion arising from the provocation that caused it. Basically this is
trying to say that if sufficient time has lapsed or there are any other circumstances
that allow the accused to regain self-control in any manner, then it wouldnt fall
under this exception.