A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charges of treating his wife cruelly during five months of their marriage and abetting her suicide, saying there was no evidence against him.
"Though it can always be presumed that a normal individual will not commit suicide except for some compelling reasons but in this case there is no evidence to show that accused had subjected the woman to any form of cruelty which could have
been a probable reason for her to have committed suicide," Additional Sessions Judge Dinesh Bhatt said.
The court also noted that the woman's aunt, who had lodged the complaint against the man for cruelly treating her niece, resiled from her statement and claimed she was unhappy because her husband was living with his relatives in a one room flat.
"Prosecution witness 2 (complainant) had stated, the woman was unhappy as accused was living with his uncle and aunt in a single room. The said fact in itself cannot be taken as cruelty to the deceased," the court said.
"Complainant has thus, completely resiled from prosecution story and has not stated anything about accused beating or ill treating the deceased at any time before her death," the court said while also noting that there was no witness to prove any harassment meted out by the accused to the woman resulting in her committing suicide.
According to the prosecution, on October 21, 2014, the woman's aunt lodged a police complaint alleging that the woman was harassed and beaten up by her husband and he compelled her to commit suicide.
The accused was arrested on the charges under sections 498A (cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC.
The post mortem report of the woman, who had married the accused five months prior to the incident and had come to Delhi from West Bengal, revealed that she had died by hanging, the court noted.
During the trial, the accused had pleaded innocence and claimed there was no argument between him and his wife and he did not know why she committed suicide.
