MP High Court upholds life term of ex-chemistry professor for murdering her doctor husband by electrocution

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has upheld the life imprisonment of former chemistry professor Mamta Pathak, who had argued her case using scientific knowledge, for murdering her doctor husband by electrocution in Chhatarpur district in 2021.

A division bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and Devnarayan Mishra on Tuesday upheld the life imprisonment handed down by the Chhatarpur court.

Mamta's husband, Dr Neeraj Pathak, died on April 29, 2021, at his house in Loknathpuram Colony with electric burn marks detected on his body.

He was posted in the Chhatarpur District Hospital.

The high court said the entire chain of circumstances indicates that the wife first made the husband unconscious by giving him sedatives and later killed him by electrocution.

The division bench, while cancelling the temporary suspension of the sentence earlier, directed the accused to immediately surrender in the trial court to serve the remainder of the imprisonment.

In April this year, the high court reserved its verdict after hearing the arguments of all the parties.

The prosecution said Mamta had come to live with her husband only 10 months before his death and was present in the house at the time of the incident.

According to the high court, no other person came from outside on the day of the incident, the prosecution said.

The relationship between the couple was strained as she would often argue about her husband's affair with a woman.

Before noon on the day of the incident, Dr Neeraj called one of his relatives, claiming that his wife was torturing him, not giving him food and kept him locked in the bathroom. He also talked about the head injury.

After this, the relative contacted the police and the doctor was rescued from the bathroom.

The relative gave the recording of this conversation to the police and also recorded a statement in court.

A court in Chhatarpur convicted Mamta based on the circumstantial evidence and sentenced her to life imprisonment. But she filed an appeal in the high court against the verdict.

While presenting her case in the high court in April this year, the former chemistry professor argued that the cause of the death in the post-mortem report was stated to be electric shock.

The burn marks found on the body of the deceased were of both types - electric and thermal, but their technical investigation was not done, she told the court.

Safety equipment like MCB and RCCB were installed in the house, due to which death due to a short circuit or current was not possible. Despite this, neither the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team nor any electrical expert was sent to the house to investigate, she argued in the court.

During the initial hearing, she argued the case on her own, but later her lawyers presented her side in the court.

In its 97-page order, the division bench upheld her life imprisonment, saying the entire chain of circumstantial evidence was interconnected.