The Delhi High Court has rejected the bail plea of a man accused of murdering his live-in partner and hastily cremating her body without notifying her parents or allowing an autopsy to take place.
Delivering the order on September 3, Justice Madhu Jain observed that the evidentiary material on record prima facie indicates that the accused not only caused the woman’s death but also deliberately deceived her relatives and misled investigators, leading to an unwarranted delay in lodging the first information report. In view of the grave nature of the allegations and the seriousness of the offence, the court ruled that no grounds had been established to grant the petitioner bail.
Allegations and Police Action
According to investigators, the victim had been living with the accused since May 2021. The woman died during the intervening night of April 14 and 15, 2022. Prosecutors stated that on April 15, 2022, the accused took her mortal remains directly to the Nigam Bodh Ghat crematorium and performed the final rites without facilitating any preliminary medical review or post-mortem examination, and without alerting her family.
Following a formal complaint submitted by the woman’s father, the Farsh Bazar police station registered a criminal case on charges of murder and destruction of evidence. The accused was subsequently taken into custody on April 22, 2022.
Arguments Before the Court
In his petition for release, the accused submitted that the proceedings have faced protracted delay, pointing out that only four of the 26 cited witnesses have been examined to date while he has remained in detention for four years. Legal counsel for the defense contended that the woman’s relatives had in fact been informed of her demise and stressed that the cremation was conducted openly at Nigam Bodh Ghat rather than at a clandestine or secluded spot. The defense also asserted that the accused had accompanied the woman to a physician the day before she died.
Opposing the application, the prosecution countered that the accused actively hid the death from the woman’s family, at one point giving them false assurances that she had simply walked out of the residence. State counsel further submitted that the accused supplied fraudulent details to attendants at the cremation facility, citing a heart attack as the cause of death despite never consulting a doctor or summoning medical assistance to the residence. The prosecutor emphasised that the accused arranged the cremation before police received any notification, thereby precluding a forensic autopsy.
