Gopal Goyal Kanda: Former Haryana minister acquitted of charge of abetting ex-airhostess Geetika’s suicide case | India News – Times of India
Geetika, who used to work for Kanda’s MLDR Airlines and was later elevated as a director of one of his companies, had been found dead on August 5, 2012, at her home in Delhi’s Ashok Vihar.
Kanda was cleared of charges ranging from abetment to suicide to criminal conspiracy and forgery even as the court noted that the MLA, who was providing her with favours and benefits due to his attraction towards her, wouldn’t create circumstances for her to commit suicide.
Stating that the evidence and witnesses did not in any way suggest that by appointing Geetika as a coordinator for the MDLR group, Kanda had the motive to instigate her to commit suicide, the court said the act of promoting her by no stretch of imagination can be treated as creating a circumstance whereby she would have had no option but to commit suicide.
“Therefore, it cannot be believed that accused A-1 Gopal Goyal Kanda…would have mens rea to create such circumstances for Geetika Sharma wherein she had no option but to commit suicide or he by his conduct, direct or indirect, had instigated Geetika Sharma to commit suicide,” the court observed in its 189-page judgment.
The court said the “prosecution has failed to prove the offence under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) read with 120-B (criminal conspiracy) IPC that accused persons pursuant to criminal conspiracy had created such circumstances…due to which deceased Geetika Sharma had no option but to commit suicide, and the possibility of deceased Geetika Sharma committing suicide due to other reasons…also cannot be ruled out.”
“None of the charges framed against (the) accused persons have been proved on record. Accordingly, both accused persons are acquitted for the offence under Section 120-B of IPC read with 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register, etc.); 471 (using as genuine a forged one); 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating); 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation) and section 66 of IT Act, 2000 and under Section 306 read with 120-B IPC,” said the court.
The judgment had been reserved on July 1 and was pronounced on Tuesday. Sixty-five witnesses were examined in the case in which five chargesheets – one main and four supplementary – were filed.
Referring to an incident in Dubai in 2010, the judge pointed out that Geetika had committed suicide on August 4-5, 2012. He noted that even if it was assumed that the accused had harassed her to make her resign from Emirates Airlines which amounted to instigation, the incident was not proximate to her death and she had sufficient time to re-think about such harassment. Therefore, such “remote conduct does not amount to abetment to suicide,” the judge concluded.
The court said it was difficult to believe that the accused were harassing Geetika from 2006 to June 2012 as she socialized with Kanda and Chadha. “Any sane and prudent person would not socialize or take benefits or favours from the very person who creates stress and tension in his/her life,” it said.
Turning to the suicide note, the court observed that from the contents of the note, it was apparent that “no specific acts or instigation done by any of the accused has been specifically mentioned”. There was mention of the accused persons pressuring her to sign documents or that she was being pressured to get an FIR registered by her in Goa against Nupur and Ankita Singh quashed or she was being pressured to return a fee of Rs 7,45,426 paid by Kanda for a course she had enrolled for.
The judge said Geetika had spoken about the character of the accused in her estimation but has not narrated any facts to show as to how she had been cheated or how her trust had been broken by them and whether the same was done with the intention that she should commit suicide.
