The Supreme Court has acquitted a man convicted of abetting his estranged wife’s suicide, holding that the prosecution failed to reliably prove his authorship of allegedly threatening letters or establish their causal connection with her death.
The Bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya has observed that a handwriting expert’s report must be proved through the expert’s examination, enabling the accused to challenge the opinion through cross-examination.
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The couple married on November 21, 1996, and had a son. The prosecution alleged that the husband and his father subjected the wife to harassment over dowry and related matters, compelling her to leave the matrimonial home in February 2009.
She subsequently lodged an FIR under Sections 498-A, 406 and 323 of the Indian Penal Code. She also initiated proceedings under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and sought maintenance.
According to the prosecution, the husband continued to harass her and sent four postcard letters containing abusive language and threats. It alleged that this conduct drove her to set herself on fire at her parental home on January 18, 2011. She died that day.
Her mother lodged a complaint on February 2, 2011. Following a magistrate’s direction under Section 156(3) CrPC, police registered a case under Section 306 IPC.
The trial court convicted the husband on December 9, 2016, sentencing him to ten years’ rigorous imprisonment and a ₹50,000 fine. The Rajasthan High Court affirmed the conviction on May 11, 2017.
Examining the contemporaneous evidence, the Supreme Court noted that the hospital admission record contained a history supplied by the deceased’s elder sister describing a sudden fire while the woman was alone at home.
During the inquest proceedings, the deceased’s father and brother stated that she had died from burning. However, neither indicated that she had committed suicide or explained how the fire originated.
The forensic spot examination report did not record any smell of kerosene at the premises. A police officer who inspected the scene also accepted in cross-examination that an electric short circuit had occurred in the room and that a gas cylinder was present.
Other contemporaneous records referred to burn injuries caused by an electric short circuit or attributed the fire to a gas cylinder. The Court considered these circumstances significant while assessing the prosecution’s subsequent account.
The prosecution principally relied on four postcards to establish abetment. However, the investigating officer had not obtained specimen handwriting from the accused.
Instead, the disputed letters were compared with an application or report allegedly submitted by him at the time of arrest and a pocket diary purportedly written by him and produced by his elder brother.
The Court explained that the evidentiary value of such a comparison depended upon reliable proof that the writings used as the standard were actually those of the accused.
Without establishing the authenticity and authorship of the comparison material, the expert’s opinion could not conclusively establish that the accused wrote the disputed letters.
Referring to earlier decisions, including Magan Bihari Lal v. State of Punjab and Patel Babubhai Manohardas v. State of Gujarat, the Bench reiterated that handwriting identification is not an infallible science.
The Court held that where the prosecution seeks to attribute a disputed document to a person through handwriting comparison, the expert must be examined so that the opinion can be tested through cross-examination.
It further stated that such reports are not admissible under Section 293 CrPC, corresponding to Section 329 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and must be proved by examining the expert.
In the present case, the prosecution had not examined the handwriting expert.
The trial court and High Court had placed weight on the accused’s failure to specifically deny authorship of the letters in his statement under Section 313 CrPC.
Rejecting this reasoning, the Supreme Court emphasised that the prosecution must establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt through its own evidence.
A perceived weakness in the defence, or the absence of a specific denial, cannot substitute proof of an incriminating circumstance. The accused’s statement must be considered in its entirety, and an omission to deny a particular allegation cannot, by itself, establish authorship of a disputed document.
The Supreme Court also found deficiencies in the evidence connecting the letters with the woman’s death.
Her father did not specifically testify that she became disturbed upon receiving the letters. Her brother suggested that the communications caused depression but did not specifically identify any of the disputed postcards. The Court regarded the mother’s allegation that the letters had left the deceased in shock as exaggerated in the circumstances.
The unexplained delay of approximately fifteen days in lodging the complaint also weighed against the prosecution.
The Bench questioned why the alleged connection between the letters and the death had not been disclosed during the inquest if the family already knew that the communications had caused serious distress.
The Court additionally noted that no charge under Section 498-A IPC had been proposed in this prosecution despite the allegations of grave mental harassment. The earlier proceedings initiated in 2009 had separately included allegations under that provision.
Even assuming that the accused had written the letters, the Court held that their contents did not establish the necessary ingredients of abetment under Section 107 IPC in the circumstances of the case.
The Bench acknowledged that the communications contained abusive, derogatory and threatening expressions. However, they also contained appeals for reconciliation, requests to withdraw pending litigation and pleas to resume cohabitation.
The letters therefore had to be read as a whole, with their surrounding context, instead of isolating particular expressions.
The Court viewed the communications as an attempt to pressure the wife into abandoning litigation and returning to the matrimonial relationship. Nevertheless, it found that the prosecution had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that this conduct constituted abetment of suicide.
The deceased had been living separately and actively pursuing legal proceedings. On the evidence presented, the letters could not themselves be treated as the instigating material that immediately caused her death.
Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court set aside the trial court’s conviction and the High Court judgment affirming it. The appellant was acquitted of the charge under Section 306 IPC.
As he was already on bail, the Court directed that he need not surrender and discharged his bail bonds.
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