Allahabad High Court sets aside acquittal in 1994 dowry death case; asks trial court to pass fresh order

Twenty nine years after a 22-year-old woman was allegedly killed in her matrimonial home, the Allahabad High Court has set aside acquittal of the accused persons and ordered the trial court to pass fresh orders in the case [Kharakh Singh v. Krishan Pal And Others]..Justice Umesh Chandra Sharma said that the trial court had misread the evidence and given an incorrect finding in its acquittal order passed in 1998.It was proved beyond reasonable doubt that an unnatural death within two years of marriage had taken place , the High Court concluded. Accordingly, it passed the following direction,“The Additional Sessions Judge-IV, Meerut, is directed to hear both the parties and again pass appropriate orders in accordance with law within three months on the basis of evidence available on the record and in light of the observations made in this judgment.”.The dowry death case in which the acquittal order has now been set aside by the High Court, was registered on March 1, 1994. It was alleged by the complainant, Kharak Singh that his daughter Anita, who got married in 1992, was murdered by her in-laws after continuous harassment for dowry. The accused were acquitted in the case in 1998, leading to filing of a criminal revision petition the same year by the victim’s father. .Looking into the evidence, the High Court found several infirmities in the trial court verdict..The Court noted alcohol and an insecticide was found to have caused the death of the victim. In this context, it opined that had the victim herself taken the poison, an empty bottle or pouch would have been recovered.Since no such item was found, the Court said it can easily be presumed that these substances were administered by others and the bottle or pouch later removed from the place of occurrence.Rejecting the defence's argument that the woman had died of natural causes, the Court noted that contusions had been found on her body and that she was a healthy woman with no history of disease. “The deceased had died in the house of the accused persons and it has also been proved from the evidence that accused persons had left their house and fled away. Hence, a burden under section 106 of the Evidence Act would also arise upon the accused persons to explain the facts especially in their knowledge as to how only a 22 years young and healthy bride died of unnatural death,” the Court added..The Court further reasoned that since the accused had left the dead body of the victim without informing anyone about the incident, some doubt was created against the accused. It was also not proved that the accused or any of their relatives had participated in the last rituals of the deceased, the Court noted.On trial court’s finding that inquest was not conducted by the concerned Deputy Superintendent of Police, the Court opined that generally, in cases of dowry death, Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) or Tehsildar or Naib-Tehsildar or any Executive Officers gets the inquest conducted in the presence of police.“If the inquest report was prepared by the concerned SDM, it is not going to disprove the inquest report or its procedure,” the Court held..The Court also disapproved of the trial court’s view that no demand for dowry would have been made as no demand for dowry was made at the time of marriage.Calling it a “wrong notion”, Justice Sharma said that dowry could be demanded before the marriage, at the time of marriage or after the marriage. Concluding that the victim had died an unnatural death on account of injury and poison, the Court said that the onus to rebut the presumption of a dowry demand having been made shifts on the defence, which has not been discharged by the accused. “Section 106 [of Indian Evidence Act] casts duty to discharge the burden and explain the facts especially within the knowledge of the in-laws as to how the bride died. If the accused does not throw light on a fact which is within his knowledge his failure to offer any explanation would become a strong militating circumstance against him," the Court held. .In this backdrop, the Court allowed the revision plea against the acquittal and set aside the trial court judgment with a direction to the trial court to pass a fresh order. .Advocates Dileep Kumar, Rajeev Gupta and Tarun Agarwal represented the revision petitioner. Government Advocate Ghanshyan Joshi represented the State and advocate NK Sharma represented the other opposite parties. .[Read Judgment]