Insults And Regular Taunts Cannot Force a Person to Commit Suicide, Observes Court

Regular taunts, insults and restrictions do not drive a person to commit suicide, unless it is done with a criminal mind to see that the person ends his or her life, observed the sessions court

Mumbai: A session court in Mumbai has observed that regular taunts, insults, and restrictions “do not drive” a person to commit suicide, unless it is done with a criminal mind to see that the person ends his or her life, according to a Hindustan Times report.

The court made the observation while acquitting 30-year-old Prashant Shelar and his 52-year-old mother Vanita Shelar of the charge of abatement to the suicide of Prashant’s wife Priyanka.

“The daily wear and tear of the family affairs wherein mother-in-law sometime complains that her daughter-in-law does not work properly,” said additional sessions judge NP Mehta said.

According to the Hindustan Times report, Priyanka committed suicide on January 16, 2015, within a month of her marriage to her boyfriend Prashant. “The said factual circumstance cannot be termed as causing mental cruelty because it a natural phenomenon and same could be seen generally in this stature of the family to which both parties belonged,” the judge added, according to a HT report.

Priyanka was not allowed by Prashant to talk to others on phone cannot be a circumstance to infer that she was being harassed mentally, the court noted. The Session court also said that there was nothing on record to suggest that Prashant ever had caused danger to her life or health.

HERE ARE THE ALLEGATION MADE BY PRIYANKA’S FAMILY MEMBERS:

• Prashant and Priyanka were in a relationship for four years before they married on December 9, 2014
• After the marriage Priyanka complained to her family members about the harassment, her mother claimed
• The mother had alleged that Vanita used to taunt her over her dark complexion
• She also said Vanita also used to force Priyanka to wake up early in the morning and would not let her sleep properly
• Prashant used to doubt her character and abuse her in filthy language if she ever missed his call, the deceased’s mother claimed
• It was further alleged that on the fateful day, when she had gone to work, Prashant had called her and threatened her to not return home
• Priyanka committed suicide at the house of her employer where she worked as a housekeeper

“Their acts as alleged by prosecution witnesses in their evidence nowhere suggest that same would have forced Priyanka to commit suicide. Whatever is stated by prosecution witnesses in their evidence usually occurs in the daily life of women belonging to “lower strata of the society” to which Priyanka belonged,” the court observed while acquitting her husband and mother-in-law, according to the Hindustan Times report.