Court awards 10 years jail to husband in dowry death case

Greater Noida: A husband has been awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment in a dowry death case by a Gautam Buddha Nagar district court. Additional Session Court Judge B K Singh held the man guilty under IPC sections 304A (causing death by negligence), 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and the Dowry Prohibition Act.

The court has awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment to Manoj Mandal under 304A IPC, 3 years RI under 498A IPC and one year jail term under dowry prohibition act, Senior Prosecution Officer, D S R Tripathi said, referring to verdict. The jail term will run concurrently, he said. According to the prosecution, Mandal, a driver, had on November 14, 2013 alleged before the police that his 21-year-old wife Aati Devi had committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan at their rented house in Chotpur colony. He had claimed he had gone for duty that day and at around 4 PM, he got call that his wife had hanged herself. The postmortem report revealed the cause of death was due to suffocation caused by hanging.

On November 20, the deceased’ mother, a resident of Sitamarhi in Bihar filed a complaint with the police here, saying she had got her daughter married to Mandal in 2011 as per Hindu marriage rituals. She had said dowry was given as per her financial condition. Mandal was not happy with the dowry and demanded a motorcycle, Rs 50,000 in cash and a gold chain, the prosecution had said. It had said as his dowry demand was not fulfilled, he used to physically and mentally torture Arti.

Mandal had killed Arti and then hanged the body gave it the appearance of suicide, it had said. On August 8, 2014 charges under the Dowry Act were framed against Mandal, who, during the trial, could not provide evidence that he was outside the house at the time of the death of his wife.

PTI