‘Couples quarrel’: Why Gauhati High Court acquitted a man convicted of burning wife alive
The Gauhati High Court was hearing a plea for acquittal filed by a man accused of murdering his wife by setting her ablaze.
The Gauhati High Court observed that the delay in filing the FIR offered enough time to “make embellishments to the case”. (AI Generated Image) The Gauhati High court recently noted that there was “nothing abnormal with regard to couples quarrelling” and that in absence of relevant discussion on whether the quarrels were abnormal or a bad or if ended in physical beatings, the existence of the same “does not allow us to speculate or come to a finding that the couple had bad quarrels.”
Justices Michael Zothankhuma and Sanjeev Kumar Sharma while hearing the plea of a man convicted for killing his wife by burning her with the help of Kerosene, observed that “prosecution has not been able to prove the guilt of the appellant as being the perpetrator of the death of the deceased beyond all reasonable doubt.”
Justice Michael Zothankhuma and Justice Sanjeev Kumar Sharma acquitted the accused giving him benefit of doubt.
‘Beaten and burned’
- The brother of the victim and the brother-in-law of the accused had filed an FIR lodged on September 8, 2017.
- The FIR stated that the accused and the victim had been married for 11 years however, about two years ago, the accused began subjecting victim to physical and mental torture over household issues.
- At around 10 pm on October 31, 2017, the accused had slapped, kicked and punched the victim and also assaulted her with a bamboo stick due to which she sustained severe injuries.
- Furthermore, the accused poured kerosene oil on the victim’s body and set her on fire inside his house.
- Despite the fact that the victim was taken to the hospital, she passed away on September 7, 2017.
- The brother also stated that his younger sister (also the younger sister of the victim) also sustained injuries while trying to save the victim.
- Following the FIR, a case under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the IPC was registered and the accused was convicted under the same.
‘Unreliable witnesses’
Senior advocate HRA Choudhury along with advocate IU Choudhury argued that the sister of the victim who was allegedly the sole eyewitness, was not a credible witness as she had given contradictory statements during her evidence and hence further proof was required to rely upon it.
It was further submitted that since due to unreliable witnesses, there were two sets of view possible and hence the one favoring the accused will have to be taken.
‘Frequent quarrels’
Additional Public Prosecutor B Bhuyan with advocate R Das contended that the evidence of the sister of the victim had clearly proved that the accused had set the victim on fire and hence there existed no infirmity with the decision of the Trial Court in convicting the accused.
Additionally, it was urged that the evidence of the witnesses reflected that the relationship between the victim and the accused was not trouble-free and there were frequent quarrels between them. Hence, there existed a motive for the accused to murder his wife.
‘Delay in lodging of FIR’
Not being fully convinced with the truthfulness of the prosecution case and the testimonies of the witnesses, the Gauhati High Court acquitted the accused by giving him the benefit of doubt.
The court observed that the “prosecution has not been able to prove the guilt of the appellant as being the perpetrator of the death of the deceased beyond all reasonable doubt” and that the “delay in lodging of the FIR” remained unexplained.
According to the Gauhati High Court this delay offered enough time to “make embellishments to the case” and “concoct a false case for the death of the deceased”. This observation was due to the fact that some of the prosecution witnesses had testified that the accused had tried to save the deceased.
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