Agartala: A former judicial magistrate, and his dad, a former deputy registrar of the Gauhati High Court so badly wanted a car that they ended up being given two years rigorous imprisonment!.

The district and sessions judge of Unakoti district, Sarabjeet Choudhury, sentenced former judicial magistrate Pathik Daschowdhury and his father Sandip, former deputy registrar of the Agartala bench of Gauhati High Court, to two years’ rigorous imprisonment and slapped them with a fine of Rs 10,000 under Section 498 (A) of the IPC in a dowry case.

The father-son duo later obtained bail to file an appeal in the high court.

According to the investigating officer of the case – sub-inspector Dipanjana Sinha of Kailasahar women’s police station – Pathik had married Sampa Pal of Kailasahar on April 18, 2006. “But from the very beginning Pathik started demanding a car as part of dowry. Initially, Sampa kept silent (but) later pointed out that her father was a retired teacher who wouldn’t be able to bear the cost of a car,” Sinha said.

Then Pathik, who was judicial magistrate in Khowai subdivision, abetted by his dad, started ‘torturing and insulting’ his wife. Sampa stayed on because of her seven-year-old daughter.

In May last year, Sampa’s mother fell sick and Pathik took his wife and daughter to Kailasahar and said he would take them back to their official quarters at Khowai within 25-26 days.

But he appeared at his in-law’s house within four days and demanded for a car. “He was so desperate that he asked his father-in-law to give him his residential house by signing a deed, which Sampa’s father Pankaj Paul refused. Pathik immediately took his wife and daughter back to Khowai and resumed the torture,” Sinha said.

On May 25 last year, Pathik severely beat up his wife. She informed her relatives in Kailasahar and also brought the matter to the notice of the additional district and sessions judge Gopal Kar, now retired. She went back to her parental home in Kailasahar the next day.

“I received the complaint as officer-in-charge of the women’s police station on May 27 last year. Sampa accused her husband and father-in-law but said nothing about her mother-in-law, who had actually tried to help her. Having gathered all the evidence, I filed the charge sheet in the court this January,” Sinha said.

She said Kar and Sampa’s daughter gave clinching evidence in court and the judgment was delivered yesterday.

“Assistant public prosecutor Mamud Ali, who represented the prosecution, also worked very hard to try the case,” Sinha added.

  crime, dowry, women