MANGAT RAI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant who was convicted by the Trial Court for murder of his wife unsuccessfully carried the matter in appeal before the High Court and having lost there has landed in this Court by way of this appeal by special leave. A few relevant facts leading to these proceedings deserve to be noted at the outset.

(2.) Introductory Facts The appellant is a practising doctor having two clinics, one is at Village Pakhopura in Amritsar District in State of Punjab. That clinic is run as a part of his residential house where his wife Madhu Bala aged 24 years met a tragic end. His other clinic is at Village Ratoke situated at a distance of about one kilometre from his residential house. The appellant was married to aforesaid Madhu Bala about one and a half years prior to the incident that took place on 4th September 1985. The case of the prosecution is that after his marriage with said Madhu Bala neither the appellant nor his mother got satisfied with the dowry which she brought and they continuously went on complaining about its insufficiency. On that account they used to ill-treat her. About four and a half months earlier to the date of the incident Madhu Bala visited her parents house at Faridkot and informed her relations about ill-treatment and the demand for T.V. set, a refrigerator and a scooter and also about their complaining that Madhu Bala had not been presented with a watch by her parents. The evidence led by the prosecution at the stage of the trial showed that P.W. 4 Brij Bhushan, brother of Madhu Bala accompanied by his maternal-uncle Roshan Lal and Des Raj who had acted as a go-between for getting the appellant married to Madhu Bala, contacted the appellant-accused and the other accused, his mother Indra Wati, who is acquitted by the Trial Court, and talked to them and informed them that they could not meet the demand as they were poor and accused should not ill-treat Madhu Bala on that score. The prosecution case further is that the accused confessed their guilt and promised not to repeat such demands in future and also promised not to ill-treat Madhu Bala. In the meantime Madhu Bala gave birth to a son. That happened about two months prior to the date of the incident. An intimation was sent about the birth of the child to the appellant but he did not visit the house of his in-laws. About 16-17 days before the occurrence Madhu Balas mother-in-law Indra Wati, the acquitted accused, visited the house of parents of Madhu Bala to take her back. While taking her back she expressed dissatis-faction about the customary presents made to the child and remarked, addressing Madhu Bala, that her parents had not given her anything at the time of marriage and even after the birth of the son she was going empty-handed.

(3.) Now came the date of the occurrence, that is, 4th September 1985 on which day Madhu Bala met an unnatural death at the residential house of the accused, her husband. Intimation about the same was conveyed on 5th September 1985, that is on the next day, to the relations of Madhu Bala about her death. They started for Village Pakhopura and on reaching Sirhali, on way to Pakhopura, they received information that dead body of Madhu Bala had already been removed to Tarn Taran. They then visited the hospital at Tarn Taran where they felt that the post-mortem exam-ination at Tarn Taran might not be fair. An application was moved by them to Sub-Divisional Magistrate for carrying out post-mortem examination by doctors at Amritsar. Under direction of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, therefore, post-mortem was carried out by a Board of Doctors at Amritsar. P.W. 4 Brij Bhushan gave his statement to the police authorities on the basis of which First Information Report was recorded and the case was registered against the appellant and his mother.