Kamal Ghorui
Noida: A fast track court of an additional sessions judge acquitted a man and his father of dowry death charges after all prosecution witnesses turned hostile and said the man’s wife died of natural causes.While ordering both the accused to furnish personal bonds of Rs 25,000 and one surety of the like amount each, Judge Saurabh Dwivedi also ordered that a separate complaint under Section 344 CrPC (giving false evidence) be registered against the complainant, the woman’s uncle, for changing his statement in court from what was recorded by police.The matter is linked to an FIR registered with the Greater Noida police station on Oct 20, 2018, by Narvar Singh against Amit and his father, Braham Singh, after the death of his niece, Chanchal, on the same day. In his complaint, Singh alleged his niece was married to Amit on Nov 20, 2011, and ever since, she was tortured for dowry by her in-laws. He alleged that she died of the torture meted out to her for the demand of a car and cash. Based on the complaint, police registered a case under sections 498A (wilfully harming a woman for dowry), 304B (unnatural death of a woman within seven years of marriage, linked to dowry) of the IPC and Section 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.During trial, the father and the mother of the deceased woman, Vinod Singh and Surendri, did not support the prosecution narrative and said their daughter was never harassed for dowry. She died of natural causes after developing a lung infection. Both were declared hostile by the prosecution.The prosecution’s case became further weak after the complainant, Singh, corroborated the statement of his elder brother and said he put his signature on a white piece of paper and had no idea about the contents of the FIR. He also said that his niece died of natural causes and was never tortured for dowry.Citing Allahabad High Court judgement of 2015 in Ashok Kumar Sharma vs State of UP, the court said that a presumption under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act can be made against the accused only if the court finds that the deceased died due to dowry within seven years of marriage under unusual circumstances and that the deceased died due to cruelty or harassment caused by the demand for dowry immediately before death.“As far as the question of forming a presumption against the accused under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act, read with Section 304B IPC, is concerned, the case does not prove an unnatural death, nor has the prosecution proven the fact of harassment for dowry or the demand immediately before the death. Therefore, in such circumstances, it is not appropriate to form a presumption under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act,” the court ruled.
