Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court acquitted a man who had been sentenced to five years in prison for abetting his wife’s suicide, holding that her dying declaration contained contradictions. She said she suffered burn injuries in an accident and also said that she had attempted suicide. The woman died of burn injuries in their flat in Motera in March 2005.Her husband was charged and later convicted under Sections 306 and 498A of the IPC (abetment to suicide and cruelty), and under the Prohibition of Dowry Act. The maximum jail term awarded to him by a Gandhinagar sessions court in Dec 2005 was under Section 306 of the IPC. He challenged his conviction through advocate Yogin Bhambhani, who argued that the victim’s dying declaration contained two inconsistent versions and that her relatives did not support it.In her verdict, Justice Gita Gopi noted that Rekhaben’s dying declaration “partially suggests that it was accidental, and there were severe accidental injuries because of the flames from the primus (kerosene stove), while the other part suggests that the deceased had admitted to committing suicide. Both contrary aspects are in the same document, which has been drawn by the executive magistrate as dying declaration of the victim. The inconsistency in the same document itself makes the document weak.”The HC further said, “Since the victim was having third-degree burns, she would have been administered with antibiotics and pain relief injections. The victim would be in a state of delirium and in the absence of evidence of instigation from the side of the husband with mens rea, no case would be found against the appellant-husband under Sections 498A and 306 of IPC.”
