The Bombay High Court has set aside the conviction and three-year sentence imposed more than two decades ago on a man accused of abetting his wife’s suicide and subjecting her to cruelty, holding that the evidence did not establish either offence.
A single-judge bench of Justice M.M. Sathaye on Tuesday quashed the 1998 judgment of a Pune sessions court that had convicted Ramprakash Govind Manohar under Sections 306 (abetment of suicide) and 498-A (cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code.
The case dated back to May 1997, when Manohar married Rekha. Six months later, Rekha was found dead in a river near Pune. The prosecution claimed that Rekha had been harassed by her husband and in-laws for money and a sewing machine, which allegedly drove her to take her own life. Manohar, however, denied all allegations.
After carefully examining the evidence, the High Court found no material to substantiate the prosecution’s claims. “The necessary ingredient of cruelty in the form of conduct of such nature as is likely to drive a woman to commit suicide is not clearly spelt out, much less proved,” the court observed.
Justice Sathaye also noted that “mere statements that the deceased daughter used to be unhappy and used to weep is not sufficient to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there was harassment.”
The bench concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove either cruelty or abetment and that the trial court had erred in convicting Manohar.
Setting aside the 1998 sessions court order, the High Court acquitted Ramprakash Govind Manohar of all charges, bringing closure to a case that had lingered for more than 25 years.
