Mumbai: Observing that every harassment doesn't amount to an offence of "cruelty", the Bombay High Court quashed a 2004 conviction against a man, then 26, and three members of his family following his wife's suicidal death within six months of marriage. The allegations of ill-treating and humiliating the wife by not allowing her to watch TV, making her sleep on the carpet, taunting her about the quality of her meals, making her do domestic work when suffering from typhoid, not allowing her to visit neighbours or go alone to the temple, could be termed as "harassment". However, as is well settled by the Supreme Court, every harassment by itself doesn't qualify as an offence of cruelty to wife under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), said the Aurangabad bench of the HC.
Likewise, preventing her from mixing with neighbours also cannot be termed as harassment, the HC said. The woman married in Dec 2002 and died by suicide in May 2003. The husband and others faced a trial for offences of ‘cruelty to wife' under section 498A IPC and for suicide abetment under section 306 IPC.
In April 2004, a sessions court in Jalgaon, convicting them, held that sending her out to fetch water at odd hours between 1 am and 2 am amounted to physical and mental cruelty. The finding was "unwarranted" when prosecution witnesses admitted that, in the village Varangaon, water supply was at such odd hours, held the HC. "When the entire village is required to fetch water after 1:00 am, there is .
