STATE OF UTTARAKHAND Vs. PRADEEP SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) STATE has preferred the instant appeal against the judgment and order of acquittal dated 30.9.2004 acquitting the respondent Pradeep Singh @ Pooran Singh Adhikari in Sessions Trial No. 14/98. The said trial proceeded against the respondent for the offences of Section 495/420/498A/306/201 IPC pertaining to PS Rishikesh. Having heard learned Counsel of the State as well as on going through the impugned judgment, it transpires that Pradeep Singh @ Pooran Singh Adhikari solemnized his second marriage with Ms. Kalpna, while his first wife Smt. Chandra Devi was alive. He was wedded with Smt. Chandra Devi way back in 1989 and out of that wedlock, he had also a son. But concealing these facts, he entered into second marriage with Ms. Kalpana and in such marriage, he received a good quantity of jewellery from the father of Ms. Kalpna, namely, Jagat Singh. During subsistence of second marriage with Ms. Kalpana, he used to torture her on the question of demand of dowry. So, facing this cruel conduct at the hands of respondent Pradeep Singh, she committed suicide by way of jumping in the River Ganga.

(2.) READING of the impugned judgment shows that even before the questioned marriage with Ms. Kalpana, she used to come at the shop of the respondent and once she came across the first wife of the respondent and could know the entire facts of subsistence of marriage, which was with Smt. Chandra Devi. Thus, she was well acquainted regarding the subsistence of first marriage of the respondent Pradeep Singh @ Pooran Singh Adhikari. That apart, the same fact has been proved by corroborative evidence of one Smt. Sushma Goryal.

(3.) AS regards the commission of suicide by Ms. Kalpana, no witness has testified this fact. Entire prosecution case is based on the extra judicial confession of the accused respondent to one Surendra Singh Bisht, who is a next -door neighbour of Jagat Singh (father of the deceased). Respondent has narrated in his statement under Section 313 CrPC that he was never in acquaintance with Surendra Singh Bisht. That apart, if the respondent made any extra judicial confession to Mr. Bisht, then there is no reason expressed on the record of the case that why he kept this fact concealed in his heart for continuously six months, notwithstanding that father of Ms. Kalpana was his next -door neighbour.