SUBIMAL SARKAR Vs. SACHINDRA NATH MONDAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Original complainant in Sessions Case No. 127 of 1989 before the Sessions Judge, West Dinajpur, at Balurghat is in appeal before us in the above Criminal Appeal, against the judgment of acquittal made by the High Court Calcutta in Criminal Death Reference No. 4/1990 and Criminal Appeal No. 327 of 1990. The State has not preferred any appeal against the judgment of the High Court, but is a party respondent before us.

(2.) Prosecution case briefly stated is that one Suchitra, the daughter of the appellant herein was married to Nakul Chandra son of Sarat Chandra Mandal, accused No. 1 before the Sessions Court. At the time of the marriage, there was an agreement to pay dowry in cash of Rs. 5001/- out of which, Rs. 3001 was paid to the accused A-1 by the appellant but he could not pay the balance amount of dowry due to poverty. A-1 was living with his wife A-4 and five of his children of which A-3 Sachindra Nath Mandal is one of them who was living with his wife Gauri Mandal, who was A-4 before the Sessions Court. The husband of deceased Suchitra was Nakul Mandal, who was also staying with his father. It is the prosecution case that because of the non-payment of balance of dowry, there was constant torture and ill treatment of the deceased by the accused persons. This was made known to the appellant (PW-11) as also his wife PW-1 Arati Sarkar.

(3.) On 16-8-1986, PW 1 had come to know that her daughter had consumed poison in the house of accused No.1 (father-in-law) and in view of the fact PW 11, husband of PW 1 was along PW 2 away in the field, had proceeded towards the village of her sambandhi and on the way they met one Nakul Bhunia, who took them on his cycle towards Durlavpur. Further on the way they found the body of deceased Suchitra being carried on Plank tied to the same by A-3 Sachinder Mandal with the help of some people and on seeing them A-3 and others left the body there and went to some distance. When PW-1 and PW-2 went near the body they found bleeding from the mouth and nostril of the deceased, therefore they took the deceased across the river Pagliganj to Balurghat Hospital, where PW-15 Dr. Nath examined the deceased and declared her as brought dead. He also opined that the death was caused by throttling. On the basis of the information, received from the Dr. PW-15, the police of the Balurghat Police Station registered a case under Section 302, IPC and started the investigation. The body was sent for post mortem examination, which was conducted by Dr. D. Shah PW-14 on 17-8-1986. He opined that cause of death of the deceased was due to manual strangulation and was homicidal in nature. During the post mortem, he noticed the bruise mark on the neck and both on right and left side of the wind pipe. On dissection, he found the hyoid bone fractured. After completion of the investigation, the police filed charge-sheet against the above-mentioned four accused persons.