Woman called ‘devil’ in man’s note before death, gets bail from Orissa High Court

Findings

• It was noted that the woman had earlier moved a bail application before the special judge, but the same was rejected in November 2025.
• The post-mortem report was considered by the court, which pointed out that there was no external injury.
• Justice Sahoo ordered in favour of granting bail after considering the surrounding circumstances of the victim’s death, along with the period of detention of the petitioner in judicial custody.

• The court directed the petitioner to furnsih bail bond of Rs 50,000 with two local solvent sureties.
• The woman is also instructed to cooperate with the investigation and appear before the trial court on each date to which the case would be posted for trial.
• The high court clarified that violation of any of the conditions would lead to the cancellation of the woman’s bail.

Arguments

• The woman’s counsel, senior advocate Yasobant Das, argued that since the victim died in the absence of his client, there is no clinching material regarding the proximate link between his client’s conduct and her husband’s death.
• Das also contested that the victim died on February 10, 2025, and an FIR was lodged on February 12, and the investigation has made substantial progress since then.
• On the contrary, the state’s counsel, additional government advocate Jateswar Nayak, opposed the bail plea and submitted the case diary and placed the victim’s last note in which he called the petitioner a “devil”.
• Nayak further argued that bail should not be granted since the investigation is in progress.

Background

The victim married the petitioner in November 2022. Subsequently, some matrimonial disputes arose between the couple, leading to court cases.

The prosecution argued that the couple started staying separately in July 2024.

In February 2025, the victim died, leading to an FIR and criminal case proceeding against the woman.

Other courts stand

The Rajasthan High Court held that merely blaming someone in a note before death for problems caused by litigation does not amount to abetment and quashed the FIR against four persons.

“Mere alleging in the suicide note that the accused is responsible for the problems being faced by the deceased on account of litigation is, in the opinion of this court, not enough to bring the act of the accused within the ambit of abetment to suicide,” the court said in the case.

The court was dealing with a plea to quash the FIR against four people who were booked for allegedly abetting the suicide of a man.