BIJON BALA DAS Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ONE Gita Das aged about 18 years was given marriage with Aloke Das on December 10,1982. They were residing at Mallick colony under Baranagar P. S in the district of 24 parganas (North ). Soon after the marriage there was strong disagreement between the couple and there was "peacelessness" in her marital home. On June 08, 1983 Aloke came to his in-laws place and asked them to visit his house. Accordingly on June 11, 1983 two sisters of Gita being Sabita Dey and Anita Dey went to Gita's marital home in the afternoon. In their presence Aloke and Bijon Bala the mother-in-law had altercation with Gita. Gita wanted to leave her marital home and wanted to go to her parental home with her sisters. Bijon Bala, however, refused to permit her to go back to her parental home. Aloke accompanied Sabita and Anita to the bus stand while they were returning. When they were in the bus stand waiting for the bus a young boy came and reported that Gita had burnt herself alive. Gita was immediately taken to the hospital where she breathed her last. There was no dying declaration as would appear from the record. Altogether nine witnesses were examined including Sabita and Anita being P. W. 1 and P. W. 8. Sabita and Anita corroborated the incident of the afternoon of June 11, 1983. They also deposed that Aloke used to assault Gita. They also deposed that the mother-in-law Bijon Bala used to tell Gita that she must commit suicide so that she could give re-marriage of her son. Both the sisters deposed that the other accused being Kesto, the brother-in-law of (Aloke's younger brother) used to give indecent proposal to Gita to have extra marital relationship with him. The neighbors were declared hostile being P. Ws. 2, 3,4,5 and 6. P. W 5 was the witness to the seizure list. P. W. 9 was the investigating officer. From the judgment it appears that despite notice the Doctor who examined the dead body did not turn up. Hence the post-mortem report did not come in evidence.

(2.) ON perusal of the complaint made by Sabita six day after the incident and the evidence it would appear that Aloke was admittedly out of the house at the time of occurrence. In the evidence both Sabita and Anita deposed that Aloke used to assault Gita. However, the prosecution did not charge Aloke under Section 498a or any other appropriate provision save and except under Section 306 of the Indian. Penal Code. We do not have any hesitation to observe that no evidence could be found as against Aloke under Section 306 by which we could come to conclusion that Aloke was responsible for the unfortunate incident.

(3.) BOTH the sisters deposed against Kesto to the extent that he used to give indecent proposal to Gita. He also used to assault her. Apart from these two evidence which were not corroborated by any of the neighbours or any other eye-witness. Hence it would be difficult for us to hold that the circumstantial evidence and the chain of events would conclusively prove that Kesto was responsible for the unfortunate incident so that he could be charged under Section 306.