New Delhi, Sept. 27: A Delhi court today cleared a software engineer from Bengal of the charge of abetting his girlfriend’s suicide, saying break-ups were not “uncommon” in love and there was nothing to suggest he provoked the act during a long-distance quarrel.

While acquitting Saikat Chanda, a Cooch Behar native, the judge also pointed out that the girl’s father had initially told police his daughter was upset over her failure to clear the National Eligibility Test that aspiring lecturers need to crack.

Jayatri Chandra’s family had later changed their version and accused Saikat of breaking his promise to marry her, but additional sessions judge Gurvinder Pal Singh said it was “not uncommon in (a) love relation that either of the parties breaks his/her promise at some point of time...”

The order said “such instances” were happening “day in and day out to which eyes cannot be shut”.

The judge also cited the “freedom” the Constitution guaranteed to every individual. Singh said the accused “had not entered” into wedlock “nor contracted” any ceremonies prior to wedlock with the deceased. “The Constitution of India guarantees freedom to every individual. Two individuals can marry with own wishes, consent and free will without any undue pressure, coercion, influence or fraud,” the order said.

Saikat had been facing trial for allegedly abetting the suicide of Jayatri Chandra, a PhD student in molecular medicine at Jawaharlal University, in November 2004.

Jayatri had hanged herself in her upscale south Delhi apartment after a heated argument with Saikat, whom she suspected of cheating on her.

The two had become friends through a social networking site in 2004. Within a couple of months they met in Delhi and fell in love. Saikat then worked for an IT company in Gurgaon while she was studying in JNU.

In September 2004, Saikat left his job after a better offer from an IT company in Hyderabad. Before leaving, he met Jayatri at her residence. He also spoke to her parents and promised to marry Jayatri after his elder sister’s marriage.

On November 14, the two had a heated argument over the phone. Jayatri accused Saikat of having an affair with another girl and threatened to commit suicide.

Saikat then allegedly lost his cool and told her “go, commit suicide if you want to”.

Minutes later, Jayatri sent a text message to Saikat asking him to call her within two minutes. If he didn’t, the message said, she would commit suicide.

Saikat allegedly never received the message and Jayatri hanged herself from a pipe in her bathroom the same evening.

The judge, however, said there was nothing to suggest that the accused, sitting in Bengal, provoked the suicide.

“Even if the words allegedly uttered by the accused or his conduct was sufficient to demean or humiliate the deceased then by such acts of the accused or his conduct it could not be established/proved that the deceased was not left with any other alternative except to commit suicide,” the judge said.

The court also said that it so transpired that the “deceased/victim was hypersensitive to ordinary petulance, discord and differences in domestic life quite common to the society to which she belonged”.

The order said there was no “cogent evidence” to suggest that while “insulting the deceased in the heated exchange of conversation, (the) accused had any intention to provoke, incite, urge or encourage the deceased to commit suicide”.

The prosecution, the judge added, had “miserably failed” to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, and so the accused was being held “not guilty and acquitted” of the offence he had been charged with.