G RAJ MALLAIAH Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The appellants were chargesheeted for offences arising under Section 304, IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act read with Section 498-A, IPC. The allegation made in the chargesheet is that one G. Madhavi Latha was married to Manik Prabhu the son of the appellants herein on 8-6-1983; that the deceased Madhavi Latha, the appellants and her husband were living in Hyderabad, that on 27-6-1989 Madhavi Latha is said to have committed suicide by setting fire to herself in the presence of her children and she succumed to the same on 29-6-1989; that the appellants were ill-treating the deceased by hurling abuses at her and did not provide proper or timely food as she did not bring enough money towards dowry. In the trial 20 witnesses were examined on behalf of the prosecution and several documents were marked while the defence examined two witnesses and also got several documents marked. The trial Court held that the offences arising under Section 304-B, IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act were not established and acquitted them of the said charges. However, the trial Court convicted the appellants for offences arising under Section 498-A and sentenced them to suffer rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years and to pay a fine of Rs. 200/- each in default to suffer simple imprisonment for one month.

(3.) Aggrieved by the said conviction, the appellants preferred an appeal being Criminal Appeal No. 577 of 1993 on the file of the High Court. The appellants engaged the services of Shri Shankar Rao Biloliker and Shri Milind Gokhale and subsequently they were replaced by Shri Anil Kumar and Shri C. Praveen Kumar, Advocates who filed memo of appearance with consent of the learned counsel appearing earlier in the case. The appeal was listed for hearing on 12-8-1977 when Mr. Milind Gokhale filed a memo stating that the appellant had taken away the file and wanted to engage some other counsel and he had already endorsed his no objection on the Vakalatnama. The matter was listed for hearing on 14-8-1997, 26-8-97, 27-8-97 and finally on 28-8-1997 on which date the matter was dismissed. On all these dates the name of Mr. Milind Gokhale was shown as the learned counsel for the appellants whereas in fact Mr. Anil Kumar and Shri Praveen Kumar had filed memo of appearance on 25-10-1993. However, that information was not put up with the file, fed into the computer either, nor printed in the cause list. In those circumstances the appeal came to be dismissed in the absence of the learned counsel for appellants.