MUMBAI: Bombay high court has refused to discharge businessman Gautam Khanduja of abetment to the June 29, 2004 suicide of his fiancée, model and 1997 Miss India Universe winner, Nafisa Joseph (then 26).A week before their marriage scheduled on Aug 7, Khanduja had refused to marry her.“Suffice it to observe that there are sufficient grounds to proceed against the applicant and there are circumstances requiring the trial to proceed,” said Justice Milind Sathaye in the Sept 10 verdict.He dismissed Khanduja’s plea challenging the sessions court’s Aug 24, 2005 order refusing to discharge him under IPC Section 306 (abetment to suicide)According to the prosecution, they met in 2003 and got engaged on May 23, 2004. While Khanduja had told her he had divorced his wife, his mother informed her he had not. Following a fight between them over this, on July 28, Nafisa’s mother came from Bangalore to Mumbai. In the presence of both parents, he refused to marry her stating that she was short-tempered. When asked why he did not submit the document as promised, Khanduja kept quiet.Next day again, he reiterated he would not marry her. Around 6 pm, Nafisa’s friend Poonam Damania visited her at her Andheri residence and found she was depressed due to Khanduja’s refusal to marry her. She declined to see a doctor unless Khanduja accompanied her.Despite repeated calls, Khanduja did not come.Thereafter she went to her bedroom, locked the room and ended her life by hanging herself to the ceiling fan with a dupatta. After the FIR was registered, the chargesheet was filed. Following the magistrate’s order issuing process, Khanduja (then 33) moved HC. On Nov 29, 2005 HC stayed the trial.Senior advocate Ashok Mundargi, for Khanduja, argued that the chargesheet did not attribute any act of instigation, threat, coercion, humiliation or intentional aid on his part. Prosecutor Manisha Tidke said the said marriage was fixed and invitation cards distributed. In such circumstance, since he refused to marry her, she felt so humiliated by the fear of disrepute to her and her family that she died by suicide.Justice Sathaye said while considering discharge application, HC cannot go into the merits to assess whether the accused can be convicted. “What is required to be considered is whether a prima facie case has been made out or not and whether the accused is required to be tried or not. A mini trial is certainly not permitted,” he added.However on overall consideration of statements, especially mother and friends, about the proximate situation that led to the suicide, Justice Sathaye said it cannot be said at this stage that ingredients of Section 306 are not made out.He also noted that Khanduja and Nafisa knew each other’s past, including her two broken relationships, “thereby making her sensitive and vulnerable to one more such incident.” “Whether the applicant’s refusal to marry and non-supply of divorce papers proved to be the ‘last straw on the back of the camel’ that broke it, will have to be decided at the time of trial,’’ he added. He continued an earlier interim stay on trial for six weeks on Mundargi’s request.
