New Delhi: Hurling 'impotent' and 'infertile' slurs at the husband in public by his estranged wife and her near relatives could be hurtful, but these cannot be construed to be an abetment for the man to die by suicide a month later, Supreme Court has said.
An engineer married an MBA woman in Sept 2013. Barely two months later, their relationship got strained and her parents and relatives came to the man's home and abused him and his family in filthy language and insulted him by calling him 'impotent' and infertile. They took her with them to her parental home.
They allegedly threatened to slap a false dowry case against him and his parents to get them arrested. The man committed suicide exactly a month after the incident as he went into depression on being shamed. His mother gave police torn pages of his diary narrating the harassment he underwent. The police charged the woman and her relatives under Section 306 IPC ( abetment to suicide ). The HC rejected their pleas for quashing the case.
Dealing with the appeal against the HC order, a bench of Justices A S Oka and A G Masih said, "While the remark allegedly made - questioning the manhood of the deceased could be hurtful and may affect a person's dignity but it cannot, in itself and especially after a gap of nearly a month between the incident and the suicide, be construed as a sufficient provocation that would impel an ordinary, reasonable person to take such an irrevocable step."
The bench said there had been no contact between the woman and her relatives and the man, either in person or on phone, to indicate continuous harassment or torture or any sort of pressure at the hands of the accused to impel the man to take the drastic step.
Writing the judgment, Justice Masih said, "From the suicide note, no abetment can be said to have been established that the accused instigated the deceased or there being any persistent cruelty or harassment which would make out an offence of abetment of suicide."
An engineer married an MBA woman in Sept 2013. Barely two months later, their relationship got strained and her parents and relatives came to the man's home and abused him and his family in filthy language and insulted him by calling him 'impotent' and infertile. They took her with them to her parental home.
They allegedly threatened to slap a false dowry case against him and his parents to get them arrested. The man committed suicide exactly a month after the incident as he went into depression on being shamed. His mother gave police torn pages of his diary narrating the harassment he underwent. The police charged the woman and her relatives under Section 306 IPC ( abetment to suicide ). The HC rejected their pleas for quashing the case.
Dealing with the appeal against the HC order, a bench of Justices A S Oka and A G Masih said, "While the remark allegedly made - questioning the manhood of the deceased could be hurtful and may affect a person's dignity but it cannot, in itself and especially after a gap of nearly a month between the incident and the suicide, be construed as a sufficient provocation that would impel an ordinary, reasonable person to take such an irrevocable step."
The bench said there had been no contact between the woman and her relatives and the man, either in person or on phone, to indicate continuous harassment or torture or any sort of pressure at the hands of the accused to impel the man to take the drastic step.
Writing the judgment, Justice Masih said, "From the suicide note, no abetment can be said to have been established that the accused instigated the deceased or there being any persistent cruelty or harassment which would make out an offence of abetment of suicide."
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