Lalita v. Vishwanath
Background
The appellant's daughter, Dev Kanya, died by drowning about a year and a half after her marriage to Vishwanath. Her mother alleged that her daughter was harassed by her husband, in-laws, and the husband's first wife, and had been driven to suicide. The trial court convicted all four accused, but the High Court acquitted them on appeal. The original complainant, the deceased's father who had lodged the FIR, died before the trial began, so his account could not be tested by cross-examination.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal, finding no credible evidence that the accused had instigated or aided the suicide: mere allegations of harassment, without a specific act pushing the deceased over the edge, cannot sustain a conviction for abetment. The Court also used the case to clarify an important evidentiary point: an FIR lodged by a person who later dies (of causes unrelated to the FIR) cannot be treated as substantive proof of its contents merely because the investigating officer testifies about it. It can only carry weight as a dying declaration under Section 32 of the Evidence Act when the death itself is connected to the incident reported. Reviewing a long line of precedent, the Court found the trial court's reliance on the deceased father's FIR, proved through the investigating officer's testimony, to be legally incorrect.
Lesson Learnt
Harassment alone is not enough to prove abetment of suicide. There must be a clear, proximate act of instigation; and if someone who filed a police complaint dies of unrelated causes before trial, their written complaint generally cannot be used as if it were their sworn testimony.