Making accused feel guilty not proof: HC while acquitting abetment of suicide accused

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The act must be proved, merely making the perpetrator feel guilty before a court of law not enough, the High Court of Karnataka said while acquitting four persons accused of abetting the suicide of a woman allegedly due to harassment for dowry.

“The circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency, and they should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved. It has been held that the act must be proved, merely making the accused feel guilty before a court of law is not conclusive,” the division bench of Justice K Somashekar and Justice CM Joshi stated in their judgment.

Prashantha Raj Urs, his mother Kamalamma, father Javaraja Urs and niece Kavya were the accused in the suicide of Pushpalatha, the wife of Prashantha. The four faced charges under the IPC for harassment of a woman and under the Dowry Prohibition Act.

The couple was married in 2009 and has a son. Pushpalatha committed suicide on September 30, 2013, by hanging herself at her matrimonial home in Chikkamagaluru. The Trial Court in 2016 acquitted them in the case. The State approached the High Court against this acquittal. The HC, however, upheld the order of the lower court.

“There has to be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused,” the HC said. The HC found that on the alleged date of suicide, the mother-in-law was attending some social work, the father-in-law had gone to school to bring back the grandson while Kavya was in college.

“Even though the prosecution has let in evidence by subjecting to examination of all witnesses, the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt against the accused that the accused alone had abetted for causing the death of the deceased who committed suicide, as narrated in the theory of the prosecution,” the HC observed.

Dismissing the State’s appeal, the HC stated: “Whereas in the same reliance, an observation is made, it is settled law that suspicion, however strong it may be, cannot take the place of proof beyond reasonable doubt and the accused cannot be convicted on the ground of suspicion, no matter how strong it is. The accused are to be presumed innocent unless proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt.”