Two acquitted in dowry death case for lack of corroborative evidence in Telangana

HYDERABAD: A Rangareddy court has acquitted two persons, including the husband and mother-in-law of a woman who died by suicide, after the prosecution failed to establish legally admissible and corroborative evidence linking them to her death.

The principal district and sessions judge, Rangareddy, at LB Nagar, observed that police had seized the woman’s notebooks and an alleged suicide note but failed to scientifically establish that the note was written by her before her death.

The case was registered with Saroornagar police on July 30, 2022, after 30-year-old Chittiprolu Nagalakshmi died by suicide. Her husband, Chittiprola Srikanth, and mother-in-law Sugunamma were accused of harassing her over additional dowry and subjecting her to mental and physical cruelty.

Nagalakshmi had married Srikanth in 2015 and they had a son. According to her father’s complaint, she had allegedly left a note blaming Srikanth and Sugunamma for her death.

The court also noted that the doctor who conducted the postmortem was not examined by the prosecution.

It further found that the alleged seizure of the chunni used for hanging and the recovery of a phone from Srikanth were not established through reliable and corroborative evidence.

During the trial, Nagalakshmi’s father Rapola Janardhan and mother Rapola Jayamma turned hostile.

While Janardhan had earlier told police that his daughter had written a suicide note blaming the accused, he stated during cross-examination that the document shown to him as the suicide note was not in his daughter’s handwriting.

Holding that the prosecution had failed to establish that the accused harassed Nagalakshmi and drove her to suicide, the court acquitted both accused on September 11.

Srikanth was arrested on August 1, 2022, and released on September 8, 2022.