30-05-2025
Cop's wife, in-laws get 10 years in jail for driving him to suicide
Ahmedabad: A sessions court in Mehsana has sentenced a woman and three of her family members to 10 years in prison for abetting the suicide of her husband, a police constable. The court also ordered Rs 5 lakh in compensation for the victim's mother.
According to the case details, police constable Jagdish Parmar was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his house at the police headquarters in Mehsana on Dec 13, 2017. Two suicide notes were recovered from the scene, prompting his mother to file a complaint against his wife, her parents and brother. The accused, residents of the Shahibaug area in Ahmedabad, faced charges of abetment to suicide, extortion and criminal intimidation.
In his suicide notes, Parmar explicitly stated that he was taking his life due to harassment by his wife and in-laws. He wrote that his soul would not rest in peace until his in-laws were punished and specifically named all four accused individuals in the notes.
After examining 17 witnesses and reviewing 35 documents, the court established that the wife had deserted the constable husband and returned to her parents. The primary dispute centred around the in-laws' demand that Parmar live separately from his mother.
The court found that despite Parmar's repeated efforts to bring his wife back to their matrimonial home, his in-laws demanded Rs 10 lakh as a condition for her return. The court said that the charges of harassment, which drove the man to suicide, and extortion were proven.
Additional sessions judge C M Pawar awarded 10 years to the accused for abetment to suicide and three years for extortion. The sentences are to run concurrently, the court stated in the order.
It also imposed a Rs 40,000 fine on each of the accused.
The court order stated, "When a husband abandons his wife without proper and reasonable cause, the wife is entitled to maintenance and other protections under various legal provisions. However, when the wife, without any reasonable cause, fails to fulfil her social responsibilities towards her husband, chooses to live with her parents and pressures her husband to live according to her conditions while demanding a large sum of money, leading to mental harassment that might drive the husband to commit suicide, it becomes necessary for the court to consider the circumstances and facts of the case to deliver a just decision.
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The court ordered that the total fine amount of Rs 1.60 lakh be paid to Parmar's mother as compensation. Additionally, the district legal services authority was directed to provide Rs 5 lakh compensation to the victim's mother.
