BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court lambasted an investigating officer for arresting a man on charges of abetting his wife’s suicide while she is still alive.
The court said, “The investigating officer (IO) who, without even adverting to the elementary ingredients of the offence punishable under Section 108 of the BNS -- abetment to suicide -- registered the crime and went on to file the charge sheet even.” The high court ordered a departmental inquiry against the IO and immediate release of the petitioner-husband, who is languishing in jail for the last six months for a crime he never committed.
“The petition before this court unveils, in stark relief, a disquieting narrative of mechanical prosecution and reckless invocation of penal provision, resulting in the incarceration of the petitioner for an offence that, on the admitted facts, could never have been alleged in the first place,” the court observed, bringing to light the cavalier attitude of the police.
Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order recently, allowing the petition filed by the 29-year-old husband, who had challenged the criminal proceedings against him based on his wife’s complaint.
“What shocks the judicial conscience is not merely the erroneous invocation of the provision, but the grave consequence that followed in its wake. The petitioner-husband has languished behind the prison walls for six long months, deprived of his liberty under the shadow of a charge sheet that could not even remotely sustain legal scrutiny,” the judge noted.
The court said the present case is not merely an error of judgment, it is a glaring manifestation of non-application of mind. It is imperative that accountability must follow such abuse of authority.
No suicide bid, inquiry must be meaningful: Karnataka HC
The inquiry shall not be a ritualistic exercise, but a meaningful examination into the disturbing casualness with which liberty was imperilled, it added.
The wife attempted suicide by jumping from the second floor of the building in October 2025 when her husband came home inebriated and tried to assault her. But she survived with broken legs and a broken backbone, and later recovered.
In the complaint she filed with the Banaswadi police, it is clear that she attempted suicide. The police arrested the husband and conducted an investigation. They later filed a chargesheet for offences punishable under Sections 108, 85, 62 and 352 of BNS. But in the meantime, the man and his wife reconciled and approached the court to close the case.
The husband’s counsel contended that there was no suicide at all for the petitioner to be alleged of abetment to suicide. As the man and wife had buried their differences, the court quashed the case pending against the husband.