HC upholds acquittal of Ghansoli man booked for abetting wife’s suicide

Holding that a man cannot be held guilty for abetting suicide if his wife ends her life for “being fed up with his liquor and gambling addictions”, the Bombay high

Holding that a man cannot be held guilty for abetting suicide if his wife ends her life for “being fed up with his liquor and gambling addictions”, the Bombay high court (HC) last week upheld the acquittal of a Ghansoli resident.

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“The fact that the accused was given in to the vice of drinking liquor and gambling, would not constitute abetment within the meaning of section 107 of the Indian Penal Code [IPC],” said justice NJ Jamadar, while upholding Kanucharan Panigrahy’s acquittal.

On the basis of a complaint lodged by his father-in-law, Panigrahy was booked by the Chembur police under sections 498A (subjecting married woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment to commit suicide) of the IPC after his wife, Shilpa, committed suicide on December 17, 2015.

However, the sessions court on July 26, 2018, acquitted him on the ground that there was no material to attract section 498A, as there were neither allegations of unlawful demand nor was the “conduct of the accused such that it would drive his wife to end life”. The sessions court also did not find any material to show that Panigrahy abetted his wife’s suicide.

The petitioner had then appealed in HC, contending that the order to discharge him from the case was based on cursory examination of the material available on record and that there was enough material to prosecute the accused.

The contention, however, failed to impress justice Jamadar. He dismissed the appeal after noticing that the first information report (FIR) was conspicuously silent about the alleged unlawful demand and the conduct of the accused that drove the woman to end her life.

The police report, on the contrary, indicated that Shilpa was distressed on the account of the accused returning home late, consuming liquor and getting addicted to gambling, but nothing else was attributed to the accused, except these vices. The judge said that in this backdrop, the sessions court was justified in recording a finding that there was no material to demonstrate that a prima-facie case for the offence of cruelty or abetment to commit suicide was made out.