NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has upheld the acquittal of a woman and her family members in a case alleging abetment of her husband’s suicide, observing that there was no specific evidence or incident to suggest that they instigated or provoked the man to take the extreme step. Justice Neena Bansal Krishna dismissed the appeal filed by the deceased man’s father against the trial court’s acquittal order, finding that the claims made in the suicide note and by the husband’s parents were too vague to establish criminal liability.
“The only allegation being made was that the wife used to threaten the deceased that he and his family members would be implicated in a false dowry case and that she also used to get those threats extended through her brothers. Such vague assertions cannot be sufficient to prove that without there being any specific incident or dates to conclude them to be acts of abetment,” the Court said. The father had alleged that just before the suicide, the couple had a fight and that the wife and her relatives regularly harassed the man with threats of false dowry charges. He also handed over an undated suicide note to the police. The man’s parents deposed that the wife was cruel and had even attempted suicide herself, once by trying to set herself ablaze with a gas cylinder and another time by consuming acid. However, the Court held that her suicide attempts reflected her own mental distress rather than any cruelty towards her husband or his family.
“Her attempt to commit suicide only reflects her mental state and unhappiness, but it establishes no act that can be termed as an act of cruelty towards the Appellant and his family,” the Court said, adding that these incidents were never reported to the police at the time.
The Bench also noted that the suicide note lacked any specific or proximate reason for the act, had no date, and failed to directly link any of the accused to an immediate act of provocation. “There are general allegations of continuous threats of false implication in dowry cases. It may be a case where the deceased was unhappy and dejected with his marriage but definitely, no act of abetment can be made out either from the suicide note or from the testimony of the parents,” the Court held.
The couple got married in April 2008 and the man committed suicide in May 2010.