Women in India often sacrifice their love and relationships to accept their parents’ decision, said the Supreme Court.
The top court noted this in a judgement which set aside the conviction and life sentence of a man who had survived a pact with a woman to commit suicide immediately after secretly getting married.
While the 23-year-old woman could not be saved in the incident of 1995, the man was convicted for allegedly killing her and awarded life term by a trial court and the verdict was subsequently upheld by the Rajasthan High Court.
The top court noted that the woman might have first “unwillingly” agreed to accept her parents’ wish but later she apparently changed her mind which appeared from the scene of the incident where garlands, bangles and vermilion were found.
The woman might have told her lover that due to resistance from her family, she would not marry him, the court said. “Such a reaction on the part of a girl to sacrifice her love and accept a decision of her parents, even though unwillingly, is a common phenomenon in this country,” a bench of Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said.
The court noted that the victim and the accused were in love and the woman’s father had testified in the court that due to caste differences, they had objected to their alliance.
The man had told the trial court that after resistance from their families, they decided to commit suicide and consumed Copper Sulphate at a house in an under-construction building in Jaipur.
He had said that the quantity of the chemical consumed by him was less as compared to the woman after which her health deteriorated and he went out to seek help from neighbours. When he returned, he found the woman hanging. She died at a hospital later.
