STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. KALUBHAI DHULAJI BARANDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present appeal, under Section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, is directed against the judgment and order of acquittal dated 6.1.1996 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Amreli, in Sessions Case No.520 of 1994, whereby the accused has been acquitted from the charges leveled against him.

(2.) THE brief facts of the prosecution case are as under: 2.1 The deceased Kokilaben married with accused before 8 years from the date of incident. After some time of marriage, the accused caused harassment to the deceased Kokilaben and therefore, the deceased committed suicide by pouring kerosene and died. Therefore, the offence was registered against the accused under Sections 498(A) and 306 of the Indian Penal Code. Necessary investigation was carried out and statements of several witnesses were recorded. During the course of investigation, respondent was arrested and, ultimately, chargesheet was filed against him before the court of learned Judicial Magistrate First Class. Thereafter, as the case was exclusively triable by the Sessions Court, the same was committed to the Sessions Court, which was numbered as Sessions Case No.52 of 1994. The trial was initiated against the respondent - accused. 2.3 To prove the case against the present accused, the prosecution has examined, in all 7 witnesses and also produced several documentary evidence. 2.4 At the end of trial, after recording the statement of the accused under section 313 of Cr.P.C., and hearing arguments on behalf of prosecution and the defence, the learned Sessions Judge acquitted the respondents of all the charges leveled against him by judgment and order dated 6.1.1996 .

(3.) LEARNED advocate Mr. Nasir Saiyed for Mr. Pancholi appearing on behalf of the respondent accused submitted that in the case, the material evidence is the dying declaration and as per the dying declaration, it is reflected that while lighting the stove, the deceased received burn injuries and she died. The said dying declaration was recorded by the public servant, Executive Magistrate. Therefore, the allegations against the accused that the accused caused harassment to the deceased, as a result, the deceased committed suicide and died, cannot be said to be proved against the accused. Even the ingredients under Sections 498(A) and 306 are not established against the accused. He also submitted that there are several contradictions between the evidence of the witnesses and documents. He further submitted that offence under Section 498(A) and 306 of the Indian Penal Code is not proved against the accused and therefore, the learned trial Judge has rightly acquitted the accused and the judgment and order is not required to be interfered by this Court.