STATE OF U.P. Vs. AJMAL BEG ETC.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals are at the instance of the State of Uttar Pradesh, laying challenge to a judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad in Criminal Appeal under Ses. 374 Cr.PC. Nos. 5109 of 2003 and 5110 of 2003, entering a finding of acquittal of the respondents herein, setting aside the judgment and order dated 7th October 2003, of conviction returned by the Additional Sessions Judge, Bijnor[Hereinafter referred to as 'Trial Court'] in Sessions Trial 573 and 574 of 2001 arising out of the First Information Report[Hereinafter referred to as 'FIR'] bearing No. 94/2001 registered at P.S Kiratpur, under Secs. 498-A and 304-B, Indian Penal Code, 1860[Hereinafter referred to as 'IPC'] and Ses. 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961[Hereinafter referred to as 'DPA, 1961'].

(2.) In this case, a young girl, barely of twenty, when she was sent away from the world of the living by way of a most heinous and painful death, met this unfortunate end simply because her parents did not have the material means and resources to satisfy the wants or the greed of her family by matrimony. A coloured television, a motorcycle and Rs. 15,000.00 is all she was apparently worth of.

(3.) Evil, unless eradicated, can never be contained. What originally began as a voluntary gift-giving practice to the daughter upon marriage, for her own use and financial independence, with time, morphed into an institutionalized practice - becoming an essential aspect of hypergamy[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypergamy]. This practice of marrying 'higher up' traces its origins to caste and kinship along with, to use a colloquial term, the 'baggage of the samaj' that comes with it. Since lineage is traced through the patriarchal line, the desire to marry daughters into equal or higher-status families ensured that their offspring retained or enhanced the family's standing. Hypergamy thus became both a social strategy and a religiously sanctioned norm. Among upper castes, this evolved into rigid practices where daughters were "married up" to families of higher ritual or political rank, often necessitating large dowries as inducements. Over time, hypergamy was not just about varna but also about wealth, landholding, and political influence. Medieval royal families practiced hypergamy to forge alliances, and landed elites followed suit to consolidate power. By the early modern and colonial periods, hypergamy had become a widespread cultural pattern across many Hindu communities, entrenching the link between dowry and upward mobility. Today, even though outlawed, it continues, having divorced itself entirely from the well-being of the female (its original intent) to what is now being referred to as the 'groom price theory'- i.e., the amount of dowry being determined by the particulars of the groom, such as social and educational background, earning capacity etc. What all of this translates to, is a systemic bias against women - pervasive across all Secs. of society - undervaluing them grossly. The amount of dowry the woman brings into the marital home directly corresponds to the value of the groom, which the woman, just as herself, is condemned to be unable to meet, or is otherwise unworthy, sans the dower.[Suparna Soni, PhD "Institution of Dowry in India: A Theoretical Inquiry", Societies Without Borders, Vol 14, Issue 1 (2020)]