SRINAGAR: The government has said that the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has upheld the acquittal of a man and his parents in a 2011 suicide case, ruling that occasional taunts over childlessness do not constitute abetment under Section 306 of the Ranbir Penal Code.
A division bench of Justices Sanjay Parihar and Sanjeev Kumar observed that an ordinary, prudent person would not be expected to take the extreme step of suicide merely because of being called childless. The judges also remarked that women today are more aware, independent, and resilient in dealing with domestic challenges.
The government said that the court, while accepting that the deceased may have faced occasional remarks regarding her inability to bear a child, held that such conduct did not meet the legal threshold of intentional instigation or persistent cruelty required for establishing abetment of suicide. Section 306 RPC stipulates that the prosecution must prove deliberate encouragement or harassment strong enough to drive a person to end their life.
The high court dismissed the state’s appeal, filed in 2020 by Additional Advocate General Ravinder Gupta, terming the prosecution’s case “shaky and unreliable”. It said the accused benefitted from the “double presumption of innocence” that applies in acquittal cases—first as a general principle of criminal jurisprudence, and second through the reinforcement of an acquittal already granted by a competent court.
The court noted there was no credible evidence of dowry demands, harassment, or coercive conduct. It also observed that although the husband was a habitual drinker, the prosecution failed to show that his drinking had made the deceased’s life intolerable or pushed her towards suicide.
The case dates back to 2011, when the woman was found dead at her matrimonial home, and her father lodged an FIR alleging harassment over childlessness. A trial court acquitted the husband and his parents in 2016 due to insufficient material to prove abetment. The high court has now upheld that acquittal, stating that the evidence did not disturb the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused.
