"Minor incidents of beatings on small issues can take place in any household and it would be unsafe and rather hazardous to unnecessarily over-stretch these trivial issues and to give those colour of cruelty as defined in explanation attached to section 498A (cruelty) of IPC," it also said.
Additional Sessions Judge Manoj Jain gave benefit of doubt to a Delhi resident, Jagmohan, and acquitted him of charges of cruelty, dowry death and abetting the suicide of his wife in July last year.
"There is no presumption that every suicide committed by a married woman in her in-laws' house or at her parents' house has to be because she was suffering harassment at the hands of her husband or her in-laws," the court said.
It noted that the material placed on record by the prosecution does not suggest any "overt act" on part of the accused, indicating that he had abetted his wife's suicide.
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It said that after being subjected to cruelty and dowry harassment, Jagmohan's wife had allegedly tried to slit her wrist before hanging from ceiling in her matrimonial house.
During trial, the man had denied the allegations levelled against him and claimed innocence.
The court said the span of matrimonial life should also be taken into account and, in this case, the marriage between the deceased and the accused had taken place in 2008.
"Marriage had taken place in 2008 and minor quarrel or one or two stray incident spread over a period of six years would not make it to be a case falling within the ambit of cruelty or dowry death," the court said.