The Bombay High Court division bench of Justices Sunil Shukre and Govind Sanap in the case of Monika Jadhav vs State of Maharashtra has quashed a first information report (FIR) registered against a woman charged with abetment in the suicide of her boyfriend, who took the ultimate step after the accused woman married another person. The first information report (FIR) notes that the deceased boyfriend was in an extra-marital relationship with the applicant-woman.
The deceased person was already married to another woman. Although the accused woman insisted that the deceased marry her, he refused her which compelled her to marry another man. As a consequence, the boyfriend then committed suicide.
The bench recognised that the applicant chose to leave the extramarital affair after the deceased refused to marry her.
The bench noted in the FIR that the applicant’s marriage with another man could not be tolerated by the deceased and served as a last nail in his mental worries, and that this will not amount to abetment of suicide on the part of the woman, the Court stated.
Referring to the meaning of ‘abetment’ in Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the court concluded that there was no conspiracy or active or intentional assistance that caused the man to commit suicide in this case.
“In this case, even if all the allegations made against the applicant are accepted as they are, we do not find that any offence of abetment of suicide is disclosed at least against this applicant. After all, the only fault on the part of this applicant was of engaging herself in an affair with a married person like deceased and further fault on her part was of she marrying another man while her affair with deceased, a married man, was on and that too when he did not agree to her suggestion to perform marriage with her. We, therefore, find that this is a fit case for making of interference in the investigation or otherwise there would be a miscarriage of justice,”
the Court Concluded
In light of this judgement, the bench quashed the FIR filed by the Buldhana District City Police against the applicant-woman.
For the state, Additional Public Prosecutor SS Doiphode appeared.
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