New Delhi: Delhi High Court has upheld the acquittal of a woman and her family in a case of alleged abetment to suicide of her husband, stating that there was no act of incitement on their part on the date when the man took his life.“In the absence of any evidence… of instigation, encouragement or aiding on the part of the respondents, it cannot be said that they were guilty of any act, which could be termed as abetment to drive the deceased to commit suicide,” the court said.In the order, the court noted that the possibility of the suicide note being written by the victim on an earlier date out of dejection could not be ruled out.“The suicide note neither spells out any circumstance that can be labelled as abetment on the part of the respondents no. 2 to 6 (wife and her family), nor does it disclose any proximate reason for the suicide. There are general allegations of continuous threats of false implication in dowry cases. It may be a case where the deceased was unhappy and dejected with his marriage, but definitely, no act of abetment can be made out either from the suicide note or from the testimony of his parents,” Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said. The court has examined the suicide note of the deceased, Vijay Singh.Vijay and Urmila were married in April 2008, and Vijay committed suicide in May 2010.The allegation made was that Urmila used to threaten Vijay that he and his family would be implicated in a false dowry case and that she also used to extend those threats through her brothers.“Such vague assertions cannot be sufficient… without there being any specific incident or dates, to conclude these to be acts of abetment,” the court said.It upheld a trial court’s order acquitting all five persons. The high court dismissed the appeal filed by the parents of the deceased, challenging the trial court order.It was alleged that before suicide, Vijay had a fight with his wife. It was also alleged that the wife and her family used to harass and threaten him with a false dowry case.Vijay’s father and mother said that the wife had resorted to cruelty. They claimed that the wife attempted to commit suicide many times by trying to burn herself with a gas cylinder and by consuming acid.The high court noted that the testimonies of the deceased’s parents showed that the wife had certain issues in the matrimonial home and it was she who had been attempting to commit suicide.It added that though the father claimed marital discord between the deceased and his wife, no such cogent evidence was brought on record.
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