STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. GURUMURTHY AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present respondents were tried by the Court of Principal District and Sessions Judge at Chitradurga (henceforth for the brevity referred to as the 'Sessions Court' ) for the offence punishable under Sections.3, 4 and 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act and Section 304(B) read with Section 34 of the IPC and the said Sessions Court by its judgment dated 30.10.2013 acquitted the accused from all the offences charged against them. It is against the said judgment of acquittal the complainant police have preferred this appeal.

(2.) The summary of the case of the prosecution in the Sessions Court is that the complainant one Smt. Neelamma, said to be the mother of the deceased Smt. Bhagyamma reported to the police on 9.6.2011 stating that her daughter Bhagyamma was given in marriage to the first accused - Gurumurthy, whose marriage was performed in a temple near Aimangala village. The accused Nos. 2 and 3 are the parents of accused No.1 and accused No.4 is the sister of accused No.1. Though they lived happily for about 9 months after the marriage, thereafterwards all the four accused started insisting the deceased to go for coolie work. If the deceased refused to go for coolie work, the accused were not providing the food to the deceased and were asking her to cook the food for herself, if she needed. They were compelling the deceased to do lot of household work. Whenever the deceased revealed her difficulties before her mother, she used to be consoled. Three months before the date of complaint, the deceased and the accused No.1 came to the house of the complainant in connection with Yugadi festival. But after the festival the accused Nos.2 and 3 refused to take back the deceased and that they asked the complainant and her husband not to send their daughter to their house. Whereas, accused No.1 came to their house and asked his wife i.e. the deceased to put signature on some papers to enable him to take divorce from her. Then the complainant and her husband advised the accused No.1 not to go to the extent of divorcing his wife and requested him to lead cordial life with his wife. The accused returned to his house at that time, but came back after three days and once again put pressure on his wife to sign the divorce papers. On 9.6.2011 at about 00 p.m. the complainant went out of the house in connection with her flower business and she received telephone call from one Gangadharappa of her village. She was asked to return to the house immediately, as her daughter's condition was very bad. So, when the complainant returned to the house, she saw her daughter being laid on a pyol (P m ) in front of her house and she found her daughter dead. When she enquired, she came to know that her daughter committed suicide by hanging herself inside the house to a beam in the ceiling. Therefore, in the complaint it was alleged that the deceased had committed suicide being unable to bear the torture meted out to her by all the accused. It was revealed during investigation that the accused were insisting on the deceased to bring dowry from her parents house and in that connection they were harassing. That the accused No.1 himself caused the death of this wife by strangulating her with a saree. Therefore charge sheet was filed for the offences punishable according to Sections 3, 4 and 6 of Dowry Prohibition Act and under section 304B read with Section 34 of IPC.

(3.) Even though the charge sheet did not include the offence punishable under Section 498-A of the IPC, however, the Sessions Court after going through the records found it necessary to frame charge against the accused before it, even for the offence punishable under Section 498-A IPC. Accordingly, charges were framed against the accused before it for the offence punishable under Sections 3, 4 and 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act and under Section 498A and 304B read with Section 34 of IPC. Since the accused pleaded not guilty, the trial was conducted.