SC: Suicide victim’s husband can’t be convicted on basis of past quarrels

Holding that a man can’t be convicted of abetting his wife’s suicide only on the basis of past quarrels and strained matrimonial relations, the Supreme Court has acquitted a man from Uttarakhand, who was handed down a seven-year jail term for abetting his wife’s suicide.

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“Merely because there was some dispute between the parties (husband and wife) by itself would not establish the act of abetment. Nothing has been brought on record to show that there was any direct link between the act of appellant and commission of suicide by the deceased,” a Bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Aravind Kumar said, allowing the appeal of accused Ravindra Singh.

The case related to the death of a woman by burn injuries at her matrimonial home. The prosecution alleged that she had been deserted by her husband, who allegedly lived with another woman. The accused and the victim had quarrelled barely two days before her death.

Referring to a complaint she had written to the principal of the school, where her husband worked and a police settlement, her family had accused Singh of abetting her suicide. The trial court convicted him in 2001 and the conviction was affirmed by the Uttarakhand High Court in 2013.

However, interpreting Section 306 of the IPC, the top court said, “A person who abets the commission of suicide must firstly, instigate any person to commit suicide; or secondly, engages with one or more other person(s) in a conspiracy for doing it and an act or illegal omission takes place in pursuance to such conspiracy, and in order to the doing of that thing.