A man's five-year jail term for abetting his wife's suicide for dowry has been upheld by the Delhi High Court which said the victim was subjected to a "continuous mental harassment."
Justice Mukta Gupta relied on the letters written by the victim to her parents before taking the extreme step while dismissing Ajay Kumar's appeal challenging the trial court order convicting him for harassing his wife for dowry and also abetting her to commit suicide.
"A perusal of the letters show that the deceased was subjected to a continuous mental harassment during the limited period of two months she stayed in the matrimonial home.
"The conduct of the appellant (Kumar) clearly falls within the ambit of instigating the deceased to commit suicide and no case for acquittal is made out. The impugned judgement of conviction and sentence suffers from no illegality and hence I find no reason to interfere in the same," the court said.
Justice Gupta accepted Additional Public Prosecutor's (APP) argument that the marriage between the couple lasted for two months only and a number of letters were written by the victim showed a continuous course of harassment to her.
On May 14, 2003, the victim had married to Kumar, a resident of New Ashok Nagar, and on July 23 she hanged herself to death in her matrimonial home and some letters, written by her, were found from her room.
The court rejected Kumar's contention that there was suicidal tendency in the family of the deceased and after her death, her brother also committed suicide.
