 "Who is Nikita Singhania, Bengaluru techie Atul Subhash’s wife? What is the harassment complaint she filed?")
Following her name appearing in his suicide note, Nikita Singhania, the estranged wife of Bengaluru techie Atul Subhash, who tragically died by suicide on Monday, has come under scrutiny.
The senior executive at a private firm accused Singhania, three of her family members and a family court judge of being responsible for his emotional distress , which he claimed led to his drastic step.
The 24-page death note reportedly accused the wife of “explicit instigation for suicide” and revealed details of several cases she filed against him, including charges of domestic violence and harassment. These legal battles reportedly took a significant toll on Subhash’s mental health, driving him to the edge.
Here’s all we know about her.
Who is Atul Subhash’s wife Nikita Singhania?
Singhania works as a senior AI engineering consultant for the multinational IT firm Accenture in Delhi.
She joined the organisation in 2021 as a senior analyst.
She graduated with a B-Tech from Banasthali Vidyapith and an MBA in Finance from Jaipuria Institute of Management.
She has over ten years of experience and has worked as an intern at Codex Infosolutions, HDB Financial Services Ltd., and Meritto (a product of NoPaperForms that serves educational groups).
According to Subhash’s video, the deceased and Singhania married in April 2019 after meeting on a matchmaking website. The couple welcomed a son the following year.
After multiple arguments, the wife, with their son, left their Bengaluru house in 2021.
What is the harassment complaint she had filed?
Singhania claimed she was harassed and assaulted for dowry when she filed a case against Subhash, his brother, and their parents in Jaunpur in April 2022.
Apart from the Dowry Prohibition Act, of 1961, other charges against them included cruelty by husband or relatives, assault, and criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code.
The complaint, according to PTI, stated that Subhash and his family wanted an additional Rs 10 lakh since they were dissatisfied with what her parents had given them at the wedding.
“(They) started torturing me physically and mentally for dowry. When I told my parents about the harassment and dowry, my parents explained to me that everything will be fine, listen and keep living with it. But no improvement of any kind came in my husband and in-laws,” she said in the complaint, according to the news agency report.
“My husband started to beat me up after drinking alcohol and started treating the husband-wife relationship with me like a beast. He used to transfer my entire salary from my account to his account by threatening me,” she added.
Singhania further stated in the complaint that her father’s health abruptly deteriorated and he had a stroke on August 17, 2019, as a result of her in-laws’ remarks and their demand for a dowry. He passed away during treatment, she claimed.
What did Subhash say in his suicide note and the video?
However, in his suicide note, Subhash called the claims of dowry “the most laughable.”
He wrote, “We demanded Rs 10 lakh dowry, which is the most laughable allegation. My wife has claimed that I had a CTC of Rs 40 lakhs when she left the house. My wife also claimed that I have a CTC of Rs 80 lakhs later in the case. Why would a man making Rs 40 or 80 lakhs would ever demand Rs 10 lakhs and leave his wife and child?”
The techie claimed that she had never shown any proof of his alleged abuse of his wife.
“I used to beat her up black and blue after getting drunk. A well-built man like me, if he decides to beat someone black and blue, would leave a person with broken bones, bleeding and at least some marks. Why did she not produce any photo of it or anyone who is a witness (we often had a housemaid, a cook, etc.),” he wrote in the note.
Subhash described this as a “poor Bollywood plot” in his suicide letter, adding that her father had been receiving treatment for heart disease and diabetes for 10 years at the time.
“Me and my family murdered her father by asking for a dowry of Rs 10 lakhs and her father got a heart attack. This is some poor Bollywood plot. She has already confessed that her father was suffering from long-term illness in her cross-examination. Her father has been treated with AIIMS for the last 10 years for heart disease, diabetes, etc. Doctors gave him a few months and hence we got married quickly after just a few months after getting connected,” he wrote.
What are the other allegations against Nikita Singhania?
Subhash’s brother, Bikas Kumar, has filed an FIR against four people—Subhash’s estranged wife Nikita Singhania, his mother-in-law Nisha Singhania, his wife’s brother Anurag Singhania and his wife’s uncle Sushil Singhania—at the Marathahalli police station in Bengaluru.
The complaint has been filed under Section 108 (abetment of suicide) and Section 3(5) (establishes joint criminal liability when two or more people act with a common intention) of the BNS.
The report claims that Singhania and her family sought exorbitant amounts of money, including a staggering Rs 3 crore to settle their legal disputes and an extra Rs 30 lakh for the chance to visit their four-year-old son.
Subhash was not allowed to see his son even though he paid Rs 2 lakh a month for his expenditures.
His video claims that the harassment went beyond monetary demands since Singhania and her family falsely accused him of dowry harassment, domestic abuse, and even murder.
During court proceedings, he further claimed that Singhania mocked him and pushed him to commit suicide.
Subhash revealed alleged judicial bias and corruption while disclosing the court’s details. He accused a Jaunpur family court judge of ignoring his appeals and giving Singhania favoured treatment. He asserted that he saw a court official publicly take bribes.
“The more I work hard and become better at my work, the more l and my family will be harassed and extorted and the whole legal system will encourage and help my harassers… Now with me gone, there will not be any money to loot and I hope that they might start to look at the fact of the cases,” Subhash wrote in his suicide note.
How did Singhanias respond to the charges?
As the case gathers more attention, Singhania’s family has spoken out. While they regret the death, they claim that they are not guilty. They told CNN-News18 that they had not done anything wrong.
“We are not guilty of what happened. We will come out with all the proof soon. We have done nothing wrong. We regret Atul’s death,” the family of Nikita Singhania said.
Sushil Singhania, 70, also denied the charges against him and his family, saying, “Subhash’s allegations are baseless. Nikita is not here. Once she returns, she will respond to everything. She has an answer to every allegation they have made. I live separately. I am her uncle, but I don’t have much information about the case. They have been handling it.”
What do we know about Atul Subhash’s case?
Subhash, a 34-year-old automobile company executive hailing from Uttar Pradesh, committed suicide at his apartment in Bengaluru’s Munnekolalu, Marathahalli, in the early hours of Monday (December 9).
The incident came to attention after Subhash emailed an NGO late on Sunday night to advocate for men who are victims of domestic abuse and related problems.
Following the tip from the NGO, police arrived at his apartment, broke down the door and discovered him dead. The police found a “Justice is Due” A4 sheet placard on Atul’s chest.
Before taking his life, he penned a 24-page suicide note and shared a 90-minute video with a title “A legal genocide of men happening in India currently,” which has taken the internet by storm.
Subhash’s death has sparked widespread outrage on social media, with many demanding justice under the hashtags #JusticeForAtulSubhash and #MenToo.
Many have also started pressuring Accenture to fire Singhania in the wake of the allegations.
It has also rekindled the debate on the alarming misuse of laws meant to protect women, which can have devastating consequences for men like Subhash.
With inputs from agencies
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