New Delhi: Gopal Kanda, who was providing favours to Geetika Sharma “due to his attraction” towards her, could not be believed to have pushed the former air hostess into ending her life, a Delhi court said Tuesday.
Acquitting the Haryana MLA and his associate Aruna Chadha in the 2012 suicide of the former airhostess, special judge Vikas Dhull ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove “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.”
Sharma had joined MDLR company as a trainee cabin crew member of the now defunct MLDR airlines in 2006, and was promoted as senior cabin crew member in 2008. In July 2009, she was transferred to MDLR Group of Hotels.
After a brief stint with Emirates Airlines, Sharma joined as the director in the MDLR Group of Companies in January 2011, but resigned in December. Kanda had also sponsored the fees of Rs. 7.5 lakh for Sharma’s MBA course months before her suicide.
The former air hostess was found dead on 5 August 2012 at her residence in Delhi. She left behind two suicide notes, blaming Kanda and Chadha for her death.
The note, reproduced in the 189-page judgment, said that both the accused “have broken my trust and misused me for their own benefits”. It also said, “Gopal Goyal is a fraud. He always keeps bad intentions towards girls. He is a man of no shame and no guilt…Now, this time Aruna is also helping him to hurt me, harass me, sabotage my family.”
The court concluded that Kanda had extended several favours to Sharma “due to his liking or attraction” towards her. On the same premise, the court also found it difficult to believe that Kanda would create circumstances for Sharma to commit suicide.
“Therefore, it cannot be believed that accused A-1 Gopal Goyal Kanda, who due to his attraction towards deceased Geetika Sharma, was providing her with so many favours and benefits would have criminal intent to create such circumstances for deceased Geetika Sharma wherein she had no option but to commit suicide or he by his conduct, direct or indirect, had instigated deceased Geetika Sharma to commit suicide,” it observed.
“Any sane and prudent person would not socialize or take benefits or favors from the very person, who creates stress and tension in his/her life. The act of accused A-1 Gopal Goyal Kanda in appointing deceased Geetika Sharma as Director, the President of Sundale Educational Society, providing her BMW car, sponsoring for her MBA Course and taking her alongwith him to Singapore, can by no stretch of imagination be treated as an act of accused A-1 Gopal Goyal Kanda by which he wanted to create circumstances for deceased Geetika Sharma wherein she had no option but to commit suicide,” the court further said.
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Rapid promotions & abortion
In its investigation, police had found Sharma was given rapid promotions with hefty increase in salary, and was appointed to senior management positions, even though she had studied only up to Class 12th.
The prosecution said that both the accused had, from October 2006 to June 2012, exerted pressure on Sharma and her parents in different ways, abetting her suicide. These included allegations that Sharma had “undergone a traumatic experience of going through an abortion”, and that she was facing false allegations of forgery, cheating and fraud due to which she was forced to resign from Emirates Airlines.
Sharma’s mother Anuradha had a call with Chadha on 3 August and with Kanda on 4 August inn 2012, the family had claimed. She also allegedly died by suicide in the same room, nearly six months after her daughter’s death.
Before the court, Sharma’s father claimed that the accused had on the calls leveled allegations against his daughter’s character and had also asked the mother to send Sharma to MDLR office to sign certain documents, failing which an FIR would be lodged in Haryana.
The prosecution had, therefore, asserted that the continuous harassment, coupled with the allegations made to her mother immediately before her death, led Sharma to commit suicide.
Both the accused were tried for offences including Sections 306 (abetment to suicide), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and forgery related provisions of the IPC. The trial court had also framed charges under Sections 376 (rape) and 377 (unnatural sex) of the IPC against Kanda, but the Delhi High Court quashed these charges in July 2013.
‘No opportunity to instigate Sharma’
Mere naming of the accused in the suicide note is not sufficient to hold the accused guilty of abetment to suicide, the court asserted.
Referring to the suicide note, the court felt that Sharma had not referred to any specific act or instigation by the accused to commit suicide. The court asserted that “on the contrary, the evidence which has come on record shows that the family of deceased Geetika Sharma and that of accused A-1 Gopal Goyal Kanda were quite friendly with each other and used to go out to visit various places together”.
Sharma’s brother and father had told the court that she used to get tensed after receiving Kanda’s calls, and that she had also asked Chadha, on one occasion, to not speak to her. However, the court felt that their testimonies do not inspire confidence, because Sharma “used to socialise with her (Chadha) by attending parties in different restaurants”.
The court noted that there was no telephonic conversation between Kanda and Sharma for the 7-8 months before her suicide, and with Chadha for about one month before her death.
“This fact also establishes on record that accused persons had no opportunity to directly instigate deceased Geetika Sharma to commit suicide,” it observed.
The judgment also talks of other possibilities which may have led to the former air hostess die by suicide. For instance, it mentions that Sharma got an abortion in March 2012, from a clinic on Chadha’s reference. The court then felt that it cannot rule out the possibility of Chadha and Kanda having disclosed the abortion to Sharma’s mother, leading to a quarrel between the mother-daughter prior to her suicide.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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