Twelve years after a medical doctor was acquitted for murdering his wife, his past sins have finally caught up as the Supreme Court in a recent verdict found the doctor guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Throwing all ethics of his profession to the wind, the accused doctor Rajiv Jassi had administered his pregnant wife with poison and later left her to die by not rushing her to a hospital immediately. His action snubbed away two lives - his wife Suman lata who was a qualified dental surgeon working at that point of time in the Solan Civil Hospital in Himachal Pradesh and the eight-month foetus later recovered from her uterus during post-mortem.
The apex court was confronted with two decisions to decide the fate of the accused. The trial court in Solan on one hand had convicted the husband for the crime and sentenced him to life term. On the other hand, the Himachal Pradesh High Court in August 2004 released him finding his conduct to be above board.
The post-mortem report was a telling piece of evidence in the case. The victim had been beaten black and blue before she was forcibly administered the organo phosphorus poison, traces of which were recovered from the abdomen. The marriage was on rocks as the accused repeatedly made dowry demands. The incident occurred on May 26, 2000, hardly two years since the marriage.
The bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra said, “The accused was in the company of the victim in the same room is not disputed. Thus, it was for him to explain the injuries found on the person of deceased.” The accused doctor alleged the injuries were self-inflicted as his case was that the victim took the poison and convulsed. Seeing the nature of injuries, the bench dismissed this argument. It further came to light that the accused had kicked the victim on her abdomen that possibly caused the death of foetus.
On the conduct of the accused, prosecution led many witnesses to show that he was in the habit of getting drunk and beating his wife. On the night of the incident, villagers heard shrieks of the victim from inside the house. When they confronted the accused, he told them to leave and refused to take his wife to hospital on their request. It was only later when villagers contacted police that she was taken to a hospital.