Mumbai: ‘Trial needed’: HC refuses to discharge fiance in model’s ’04 suicideBombay high court has refused to discharge businessman Gautam Khanduja in the case of abetment to the July 29, 2004 suicide of his fiancée, model and 1997 Miss India Universe contest winner, Nafisa Joseph (then 26). A week before their marriage, scheduled for Aug 7, Khanduja had refused to marry her.“Suffice it to observe that there are sufficient grounds to proceed against the applicant and there are circumstances requiring the trial to proceed,” said Justice Milind Sathaye on Thursday. He dismissed Khanduja’s plea challenging the Sessions Court’s Aug 24, 2005 order refusing to discharge him under IPC Section 306 (abetment to suicide)According to the prosecution, Nafisa and Khanduja met in 2003 and got engaged in May 2004. While Khanduja had told her that he had divorced his wife, his mother informed her that he had not. Therefore, Nafisa insisted on seeing the divorce papers. On July 28, 2004, in the presence of their parents at the Bandra residence, Khanduja refused to marry Nafisa as she was “short-tempered.”Next day again, he repeated he would not marry her. Around 6 pm, Nafisa’s friend Poonam Damania visited her at her Andheri residence and found that she was depressed due to Khanduja’s refusal to marry her. She refused to see a doctor unless Khanduja accompanied her. Despite Poonam’s repeated calls, he did not come. Thereafter, Nafisa locked her bedroom and ended her life. Following the Sessions Court’s order, Khanduja (then 33) moved the HC. In Nov. 2005, the HC stayed the trial.Senior advocate Ashok Mundargi, for Khanduja, argued that the chargesheet did not attribute any act of instigation, threat, coercion, humiliation or intentional aid on his part. Also, mere refusal to marry cannot amount to abetment. Prosecutor Manisha Tidke said the marriage was fixed and invitation cards distributed. In such circumstances, since Khanduja refused to marry her, Nafisa felt so humiliated by the fear of disrepute to her and her family that she died by suicide.Justice Sathaye said that while considering the discharge application, the HC cannot go into the merits of the case but has to consider “whether the accused is required to be tried or not.”Considering statements, especially from the mother and friends, “about the proximate situation that led to the suicide”, Justice Sathaye said, “It cannot be conclusively said, at this stage, that the ingredients of Section 306… are not made out.” Also, it did not appear from statements that Khanduja and Nafisa had not spoken with each other two days before her death, as argued by Mundargi.Justice Sathaye said it appears from material available that Khanduja and Nafisa knew each other’s past, including her two broken relationships, “thereby making her sensitive and vulnerable to one more such incident.” “Whether the applicant’s refusal to marry and non-supply of divorce papers proved to be the ‘last straw on the back of the camel’ that broke it, will have to be decided at the time of trial,’’ Justice Sathaye added. On Mundargi’s request, he continued the stay on the trial for six weeks.
