“You are accused of murdering your husband by electrocution. What do you have to say about the post-mortem’s findings?” a Madhya Pradesh High Court judge asked a woman.
And the woman answered with her experience, gathering everything she knew, her confidence and all the years of teaching chemistry, 60 year old professor Mamta Pathak replied in a way that shocked the bench and took then by surprise.”Sir, it is not possible to differentiate between thermal burn marks and electric burn marks in a post-mortem room,” she said.
In front of the division bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Devnarayan Mishra, Mamta Pathak, an assistant professor of chemistry, flexed her chemistry skills. She gave a very complex explanation about how electric current interacts with tissues, mentioning the deposition of medical metal particles, acid-based separations in lab tests, and chemical reactions that can only be correctly shown after proper lab analysis. She explained that such observations cannot be made looking at it.
This conversation at the hearing of the murder case against Mamata Pathak, has stunned legal experts and is going viral on social media posts describing it as “one of the most unusual courtroom defences in recent memory”.
On April 29, 2021, in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur, Mamta Pathak was accused of giving her husband, Neeraj Pathak, a retired government doctor, a heavy dose of sleeping pills before electrocuting him. After which she left for Jhansi with her son.
During police investigations, she stated that she had returned from Jhansi on May 1 and found her husband dead. But according to a voice recording of Neeraj Pathak claiming his wife tortured him, and their driver’s testimony about her confessing to a “big mistake”. All this turned the case against her.
More evidences like the troubled marriage added to the case, with investigations stating Mamta Pathak had filed a complaint against her husband for domestic abuse and accusing her husband of drugging her food. But after some time she withdrew the complaint.
A sessions court found her guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced her to a life time imprisonment. She then approached the High Court and secured bail last year.
After the last hearing on April 29, the Bench has given the judgment. Mamta Pathak remains out on bail.
