‘Made her life a curse’: Jharkhand High Court upholds man’s conviction for wife’s suicide

The Jharkhand High Court has maintained a man's conviction for his wife's suicide, nearly 28 years after the incident in 1998. The court concluded that repeated demands for money to finance his drinking habit, the sale of her jewelry, and daily physical abuse from the husband had driven her to take her own life. Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava stated that the husband's actions alone were responsible for the woman's suicide, including the consumption of alcohol and daily physical assaults.

The husband was ordered to serve the remaining portion of his seven-year sentence. The woman's father had given her household items and jewelry when they married in 1997; however, the father claimed that his son-in-law allegedly sold her jewelry to fund his bad habits. The woman was allegedly found dead in a well on October 10, 1998.

The husband had two relatives who were also named as accused, and one of them died in 2012 while the case was pending, which caused his appeal to be dismissed. The court noted that the woman's death was due to drowning, and there was no evidence of the husband throwing her into the well, only that she had taken her own life.