‘Mere refusal to marry isn’t suicide abetment’

Panaji: A Mapusa court has acquitted a man of abetment to suicide of his girlfriend, whom he had refused to marry, after finding no evidence against him.The court held that mere refusal to marry cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be construed as abetment to die by suicide.

It further held that the man cannot be blamed for abetting suicide if the woman died of suicide of her own volition.The man, who was in a relationship with the woman, assured her he would marry her but later refused to do so and allegedly told her to die by suicide.In her dying declaration, she stated that the man refused to marry her, tried to forcibly have physical relations with her, and when she refused, she was assaulted.

She added that he told her to do whatever she wanted, even die by suicide.Even if the dying declaration is taken at face value, merely because the accused told the woman to die by suicide when she insisted that they get married against his wishes, it cannot be termed as instigation and abetment to suicide, the court held.“The deceased in the present case appears to be of a frail mind and had no patience to wait to marry, insisting on marrying the accused immediately after she attained the age of 18 years,” the court said.

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