Allahabad, May 9: The ploy of citing his impotence as the cause for his wife's suicide has backfired on a man who sought to escape dowry death charges. The Allahabad high court has held that the impotence plea would open him to the charge of abetting her suicide. Rejecting a bail plea, Justice B A Zaidi said that if an impotent man engages in matrimony and the wife subsequently commits suicide because of frustration, the husband must be held liable for consequences.

The ruling came on the second bail plea of Kuldeep Singhal of Gautam Buddha Nagar in which he had, for the first time, cited his impotence as the reason for his wife's death.

In his earlier bail application, which was rejected two years ago, Kuldeep Singhal of Gautam Buddha Nagar had made no reference to the sexual aspect of his marriage. He had all along only denied the charge of driving his wife to suicide by harassing her for dowry.

Kuldeep took the new ground in his second bail application on the basis of prosecution witness Umesh Kumar's submission in his cross-examination before the trial court that Kuldeep was impotent and that the resultant sexual frustration had driven his wife to commit suicide.

The court, however, said that the applicant cannot claim any advantage on the basis of Kumar's statement. Even assuming that the husband is impotent, though this fact has not yet been established by any medical evidence, he can be deemed to be an abettor if the wife committed suicide on that ground, remarked the judge.

The case was registered with the Dankaur police station of Gautam Budh Nagar district. The FIR against Kuldeep was registered under section 304-B IPC (dowry death) and 498-A IPC (cruelty through any wilful conduct). The bail application filed in due course was first rejected by the sessions court and then by the high court. In his latest bail application before the high court, Kuldeep, citing the testimony of prosecution witness Umesh Kumar, tried to change the dowry death case to that of wife committing suicide because of the husband's impotence