BHOPAL/JABALPUR: The Madhya Pradesh high court has upheld the life sentence awarded to a former chemistry professor from Chhatarpur district for killing her husband by electrocution, turning down her appeal against a sessions court order.A video of court proceedings during hearing of her appeal by a division bench of MP high court had gone viral in April in which she was arguing her own case and trying to drive home her contention that thermal and burn marks can’t be differentiated in post mortem and it can only be done through chemical analysis, therefore the post mortem report of her husband that he died due to electrocution was not reliable. When one of the judges asks her during her arguments “If she is a professor of chemistry”, she nods and says “Yes”.Following hearing her arguments on April 28, 2025, the court had suspended her sentence while reserving its judgement. But in the final judgement, the judges vacated the suspension of sentence and asked professor Mamta Pathak to surrender in the trial court to undergo the remainder of her sentence.
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The court, while upholding the trial court order, said that looking at the chain of events on the day of the incident in 2021, it’s clear that nobody visited the couple and it was Mamta who administered some intoxicant to her husband Dr Neeraj Pathak and electrocuted him when he was unconscious.60-year-old Mamta Pathak was charged with killing her husband Dr Neeraj Pathak, 65, a doctor posted at civil hospital Chhatarpur on April 29, 2021 after administering him sleeping pills and electrocuting him when he was unconscious at their residence in Chhatarpur. Burn marks were found on the body of the slain doctor at five places. Mamta, a professor of chemistry, lived away from her husband due to marital discord but they were living together for some months. She suspected her husband to have an extramarital relationship.Though Mamta challenged the findings of the postmortem report during her arguments very much like a chemistry professor, there was other strong evidence against her too. On the day of the incident, her husband had made a phone call to one of his friends to tell him that his wife has been harassing her for the last 2-3 days and has shut him in a bathroom. He sustained injuries when he resisted her attempts to put him in the bathroom. He further asked him to contact police to get him free. The friend in question contacted SHO, Civil Lines police station, Chhatarpur and the doctor was freed. Recording of the conversation between the doctor and his friend was produced in the court by the latter.The doctor died at 9pm on April 29, 2021. She knew about it but she went for dialysis to a hospital in Jhansi with her son and driver of her car the next day. The dialysis was refused as she didn’t have Covid certificate and they returned the same night and only on May 1, she informed the police about the death of her husband two days after.
