STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. ANIL KURKOTTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant has approached this court impugning a judgment delivered on 21-3-1997, whereby four accused were acquitted against a charge of offence punishable under Sections 498A and 306 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 498A and Section 306 read as under:

(2.) The prosecution had also made arguments relying upon Section 113A of the Indian Evidence Act, i.e., presumption as to abetment of suicide by a married woman. In this provision, if the married woman committed suicide within a period of seven years from the date of her marriage and that her husband or such relative of her husband had subjected her to cruelty, the Court may presume, having regard to all the other circumstances of the case, that such suicide had been abetted by her husband or by such relative of her husband. The exact date of marriage has not been given anywhere. Even the father of the deceased, P.W.-2, when he remembers in which year his brother joined service or daughter of Accused No.3 was given in marriage to his brother or in which year deceased Swati was born, strangely does not remember whether marriage of his daughter Swati was performed in the year 1985 or the date of marriage. Swati (hereinafter referred to as Swati or deceased) died on 23-9-1995. From the evidence of P.W.-1, it does appear that it was certainly more than 7 years after the marriage the deceased committed suicide. Therefore, the presumption under Section 113A of the Indian Evidence Act, cannot apply.

(3.) The deceased Swati, who is the daughter of the complainant (P.W.-2), was married to Accused No.1 more than seven years prior to her death. Swati was born in 1974 and marriage appears to have taken place in 1985, so she was 11 years of age when she got married. P.W.-2, in the cross-examination says at one place that she attained her puberty in the matrimonial home, but in another place states that two years after the marriage, Swati lived in the parental house because she had not attained the age of puberty. This is just one of the mysteries I have not been able to unravel. There are many other gray areas or mysteries.