Phone sex cannot be ground for abetment to suicide charge: Bombay high court

MUMBAI: Merely because a wife indulged in phone sex with her banker husband's friends, she cannot be booked for abetting his suicide, Bombay high court ruled on Friday.
Justice Mridula Bhatkar said there was no material to charge the woman for abetting her husband's suicide. The Thane-based banker had set himself on fire in his house in July 2015.


The police charged the woman contending the banker had got traumatised after he found out his wife was indulging in phone sex by sending "vulgar messages" to one of his friends in the city and another friend in Dubai. Though the woman did not dispute the claim, her lawyers claimed she had indulged in the acts in secret and, hence, could not be blamed for driving him to suicide.

Justice Bhatkar said while the woman could have indulged in infidelity, there was no material to prove she had actively instigated or abetted the suicide. The court agreed that she had not meant her husband to find out she was engaging in phone sex with his friends. "If at all the accused would have indulged in phone sex deliberately, disclosing this repeatedly (to her husband) despite his warning to desist, it would have been considered planned harassment. Such repeated, deliberate sexual SMSes would have manifested the intention to drive the victim to suicide. The guilty mind is to be necessarily linked with infidelity, but not abetment to commit suicide," said the court.

The court added that such phone messages do not constitute adultery under the IPC, which requires a physical act. "When the Indian Penal Code or Hindu Marriage Act was enacted, such kind of sexual intercourse by SMS was never imagined by the law makers," the judge said. "To commit suicide is a very unfortunate reaction of the accused who was deeply hurt," the judge added.

The court quashed the order of the Thane sessions court that had refused to discharge the woman from the case.

The couple had got married in 2002 and have a 13-year- old son. According to the police, it was not a happy marriage as both suspected the other's fidelity. The FIR filed by the father of the deceased said his son had disclosed his wife was ill-treating him and also that he had found out about the messages she was exchanging with his friends. In their chargesheet, the police furnished the messages exchanged between her and the friends. The prosecution claimed the man was shocked to find the messages and this had led him to commit suicide. Neighbours had said the couple had been fighting on the night of the incident. The minor son had told the police his father had been drinking all night and had assaulted his mother.