STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. SHARAD RAMBHAU KHANDE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal is filed by the State of Maharashtra challenging the judgment of acquittal passed by the learned Assistant Sessions Judge, Satara on 18.8.2008 in Sessions Case No.25 of 2008.

(2.) The accused are the son and father. They have been charged for having committed offence punishable under Sections 498A and 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The wife of accused No.1 (Respondent No.1 herein) was found to have been drowned in a well in the village where they lived. Upon the complaint filed by her father, the Respondents came to be charged for having committed offence under the aforesaid sections. It has been the case of the prosecution that the deceased one Aruna, who was the wife of Respondent No.1, and the daughter-in-law of Respondent No.2 herein, got married on 18.7.2006. She died upon drowning on 7.9.2007 within about 14 months of her marriage. Her death was unnatural and was caused by the cruelty and harassment to her by the Respondents. The evidence that has been led is that during about 14 months of her married life, she had visited her paternal home thrice i.e. on Diwali day, Sankrant day and Rakhi Pornima day. On each of these days, she had informed her parents that her husband was demanding dowry and ill-treated and harassed her by abusing her after consuming liquor. She had further disclosed to her mother when she visited on Sankrant day that her father-in-law was seeing her with an evil eye when she was serving food to him and used to abuse her. She again disclosed to her parents on Rakhi Pornima day when she went to meet them that one day when she was in the field her father-in-law had caught her hand; she shouted upon which he went away.

(3.) Soon thereafter on 9.7.2007, her maternal uncle brought news that there was a quarrel between the deceased and the Respondents and they were called to her house. They went there in a tractor. There was a commotion and when they inquired, they were told that she died due to fall in a well.