GUWAHATI: The Supreme Court recently acquitted a man nearly thirty years after his conviction in a case concerning the suicide of his wife, ruling that past matrimonial disputes alone do not constitute abetment under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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A bench comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and Aravind Kumar held that mere allegations of harassment or strained marital relations were insufficient to uphold a conviction under Section 306 IPC, which deals with abetment of suicide. The court clarified that a clear and direct link must be established between the accused’s conduct and the act of suicide.
The judgement further observed that there was no material on record indicating any overt act of instigation or intentional aid on the part of the appellant-husband that led the deceased to take her life. “Merely because there was some dispute between the parties by itself would not establish the act of abetment,” the bench noted.
The case stemmed from the death of a woman who died of burn injuries at her matrimonial home in Uttarakhand. According to the prosecution, she was deserted by her husband, who was allegedly cohabiting with another woman. Her family referred to a complaint she had addressed to the principal of her husband’s school, followed by a police-mediated settlement. A quarrel between the couple was said to have occurred two days prior to her death.
Following the incident, the trial court convicted the husband in 2001, and the conviction was upheld by the Uttarakhand High Court in 2013. However, only recently did the Supreme Court set aside both findings, concluding that the circumstances, even if accepted as true, did not demonstrate the mental element necessary for abetment under Section 306 IPC.
The court finally reiterated that conviction under Section 306 must be grounded in proximate and unambiguous evidence of instigation or encouragement.