Mohali, 3 February 2025: A local court sentenced a Kharar resident, Rakesh Singh, to seven years of rigorous imprisonment for abetting his wife’s suicide in 2020.
Additional Sessions Judge Baljinder Singh Sra also imposed a fine of ₹2,000 on Singh, who has already spent four years and three months in judicial custody. The court adjusted this period against his sentence.
However, citing a lack of evidence, the court acquitted Singh’s parents, brother-in-law, and sister, who were also accused in the case.
According to case records, Kharar police received a report on May 23, 2020, about a woman who had ended her life by hanging herself with a dupatta from a ceiling fan.
Upon reaching the scene, officers found that family members had already untied her body and placed it on a bed.
The deceased’s brother, who filed the complaint, alleged that his sister faced persistent harassment from her in-laws over dowry since her marriage to Singh in October 2018.
He claimed that in April 2019, when she was pregnant, her in-laws expelled her from the house.
She gave birth to a son in June 2019 and returned to her matrimonial home after a compromise. However, she later informed her younger sister that she had been physically assaulted again and was receiving death threats.
Taking into account statements from the deceased’s family, the court found Singh guilty under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
“When the deceased was pregnant, she was expelled from the matrimonial house after physical beating. It has been proved on record that the deceased committed suicide on account of the harassment given by her husband,” the court stated while pronouncing the sentence.
Meanwhile, all accused were acquitted of dowry death charges due to a lack of supporting medical evidence.
“On appraisal of medical evidence on record, it transpires that the deceased committed suicide. The assertion being made by the prosecution witnesses that the deceased disclosed on telephone that she was being physically assaulted is falsified by the medical evidence on record.
Thus, the reliance being placed upon the aforesaid piece of evidence in order to prove the dowry demand does not carry credibility and credence,” the court observed.
