Mamta Pathak, a former chemistry professor who argued her own appeal in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, will have to undergo a life sentence as the court upheld her conviction on Tuesday.
Pathak was convicted for the murder of her husband, Neeraj Pathak, 63, a senior physician at the Chhatarpur District Hospital, in 2021.
He was found dead on April 29, 2021, in his Loknathpuram house in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur town. The cause of death, according to the autopsy, was electrocution. Within days, Mamta, a professor at a local government college, was arrested for his murder and charged under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
The trial, conducted at the Chhatarpur district court, was based on circumstantial evidence, including marital discord over Mamta’s belief that her husband was having an affair. Besides this, her behaviour the day after his death — leaving the house with her son in the morning without informing anyone about her dead husband and going to Jhansi, over 100 km away, for dialysis, according to court documents — was deemed suspicious.
Mamta had argued her own case before the High Court and stated that there were several lapses in the postmortem report.
She argued that she could not have electrocuted her husband as the house was wholly insulated and there was no possibility of completion of the circuit, so the cause of death had to be cardiac arrest.
A bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and Devnarayan Mishra, in their 97-page judgement, rejected her plea as investigating officer Jagatpal Singh told the court that he had seized a two-pin plug wire. “It is evident that firstly, earthing is possible only through a three-pin plug wire where three internal cords of the electric wire are connected to positive, negative and earthing. In a two-pin point plug, there is no aspect of earthing,” the court said.
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Thus, the aforesaid part of the evidence clearly reveals that firstly, the “theory of functioning of RCCB and the house being completely insulated is not made out… Secondly, the RCCB (residual current circuit breaker) can be manipulated, and thirdly, there is medico-legal evidence of exit wound of electric current, which shows that earthing had taken place.”
Mamta flagged the lack of “chemical examination and electron microscopy to find out the deposition of metals on the skin and tissue”, while making her point on insufficient evidence for electric burns. The court perused the testimonies of two doctors who conducted the postmortem examination to reject her plea.
“No suggestion was given to Dr Mukul Sahu that in the absence of scanning of skin through electron microscopy, it is not possible to say that the burns were caused due to electric current. Even Dr D S Badkur, former director of Medico Legal Institute, did not say that without electron microscopy, finding of electric burns cannot be given,” the court opined.
Rejecting the prosecution’s argument of marital discord, Mamta had argued that she was a good mother for her children and produced a greeting card sent by her children on her birthday. The court said this was “not a sufficient circumstance to take away the motive because a person may be a ‘doting mother but may also be a suspecting wife’ at the same time.”
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“Unless any evidence is brought on record to show that there was not only an element of cordiality but the relationship between husband and wife was of great faith and understanding, and merely on suggestion of the appellant, the motive cannot be removed from the acts of the appellant,” the court said.
A photograph showing Mamta feeding Dr Neeraj Pathak or showing her in his company “clearly reveals that none of them are of the recent past,” the court said.
Mamta had alleged that her signatures were taken by the police under pressure. But she also “admits that she is literate and is working as Assistant Professor of Chemistry”, the court observed.
“Merely saying that her signatures were obtained under pressure and explaining that her signatures were obtained after seven days of recording of the inquest are two different things and she has very cleverly tried to cover up by saying that the admission, which has already come on record in the form of signatures on inquest, were obtained under duress after seven days. There is no material to support the aforesaid contention and, therefore, it needs to and is hereby rejected,” the court said.
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On the defence contention on the delay in filing an FIR and Mamta’s name not featuring in it, the court said, “The FIR is neither ante-dated nor ante-timed, it is based on Merg Intimation, which is not accused of being manipulated. ”
“Much noise without any substance cannot be made so as to frustrate the investigation and the consequential proceedings,” the court observed.
The court had also perused medical reports to state that the defence claim that Dr Pathak was suffering from Covid and was hence in isolation was denied. The court said, “Covid antigen report of Dr Neeraj Pathak was negative. It leaves no iota of doubt that he was apparently not suffering from Covid and was in fact under a forceful isolation…,” the judgement read.
