Torturing wife can't lead to automatic conviction for her suicide: Delhi high court

A husband convicted of torturing his wife cannot be automatically held guilty of abetment of her suicide, the Delhi high court has ruled.

The court passed the order on an appeal filed by a man challenging the judgement of a lower court which had convicted him of torturing his wife and abetting her suicide.

"Merely because the court has held that Shailender (husband) is guilty of subjecting wife to cruelty and has convicted him under Section 498-A IPC (cruelty) by itself would not be sufficient to convict him under Section 306 (abetment of suicide)as well," Justice AK Pathak said.

The court set aside the conviction of Shailendra Kumar for abetting his wife's suicide but held him guilty for subjecting her to cruelty.

"Conviction of Shailender under section 498-A is maintained. But his conviction under section 304-B IPC and sentence awarded therein are set aside," the court said.

In this case, Sonia, a student from Delhi College of Engineering, committed suicide in 2005.

The police investigation found that she did not have good relation with her husband who used to harass her.

The trial court had convicted him for subjecting her to cruelty forcing her to commit suicide.

"The utterances to the disliking of the deceased and the other acts of Shailender may be sufficient to attract the ingredients of offence under section 498-A IPC but the same would not be sufficient enough to draw a presumption that he had abetted her suicide," the court said.