NEW DELHI: Hurling ‘impotent’ and ‘infertile’ slurs on the husband in public by his estranged spouse and her close to relations might be hurtful, however these can’t be construed to be an abetment for the person to die by suicide a month later, Supreme Courtroom has mentioned.
An engineer married an MBA lady in Sept 2013. Barely two months later, their relationship received strained and her dad and mom and relations got here to the person’s dwelling and abused him and his household in filthy language and insulted him by calling him ‘impotent’ and infertile. They took her with them to her parental dwelling.
They allegedly threatened to slap a false dowry case towards him and his dad and mom to get them arrested. The person dedicated suicide precisely a month after the incident as he went into despair on being shamed. His mom gave police torn pages of his diary narrating the harassment he underwent. The police charged the lady and her relations below Part 306 IPC (abetment to suicide). The HC rejected their pleas for quashing the case.
Coping with the enchantment towards the HC order, a bench of Justices A S Oka and A G Masih mentioned, “Whereas the comment allegedly made – questioning the manhood of the deceased might be hurtful and will have an effect on an individual’s dignity nevertheless it can’t, in itself and particularly after a spot of practically a month between the incident and the suicide, be construed as a ample provocation that may impel an peculiar, affordable particular person to take such an irrevocable step.”
The bench mentioned there had been no contact between the lady and her relations and the person, both in particular person or on cellphone, to point steady harassment or torture or any form of strain by the hands of the accused to impel the person to take the drastic step.
Writing the judgment, Justice Masih mentioned, “From the suicide word, no abetment could be mentioned to have been established that the accused instigated the deceased or there being any persistent cruelty or harassment which might make out an offence of abetment of suicide.”