RISHI KUMAR Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RISHI Kumar accused-appellant was married to Saroj deceased in February, 1981. Husband Rishi Kumar native of village Ladayan was employed as Telephone Operator at Rohtak. After marriage Saroj also came to Rohtak and the two started living in a rented house in Jagdish Colony, Rohtak. One Shanti Parkash, a Harijan native of same village Ladayan, who is an employee of the State Bank of India at Bahadurgarh, was also a tenant in another portion of the same house and as living therein with his wife Tarawati and children. Rishi Kumar and Shanti Parkash, both tenants in the same house, had a commensality of kitchen. A year after marriage Saroj told her husband Rishi Kumar that since both of them hail from the same village Ladayan and Shanti Parkash was a Harijan, it was not advisable to have a common mess with a Harijan and people in the native village Ladayan will look down upon them on this score. Rishi Kumar, who was stealthily carrying on with Tarawati, did not relish the talk of his wife regarding taking exception to commensality of kitchen with Tarawati, gave her a severe beating for her utterances in this regard and forced her to continue running a common mess with Tarawati wife of Shanti Parkash.

(2.) SAROJ conveyed the happening aforesaid to her sister-in-law Sarla, wife of her brother Mohinder Lal, who in turn apprised her husband Mohinder Lal of it. Mohinder Lal talked about it to Raj Kumar, husband of his elder sister Anguri alias Savitri Devi. Raj Kumar broached the subject with Rishi Kumar who just put him off by diverting the topic of discussion.

(3.) SHORTLY before the marriage of Naresh Kumar, Saroj had become pregnant from the loins of Rishi Kumar. While sitting in her parents house in the course of marriage aforesaid, Saroj had conveyed the factum of pregnancy to her mother and sister-in-law and also said that Rishi Kumar, her husband was always accusing her of infidelity and saying that the foetus in her womb was not his. Ishwar Piari nurse working in Medical College Hospital at Rohtak, who also resides in Jagdish Colony, Rohtak, told Mohinder Lal, brother of the deceased, on 16th April, 1984 that on 15th April, 1984, Tarawati had brought the deceased to her for carrying out abortion of the child in the womb of Saroj but the witness did not do so because Saroj was not consenting to it and wanted to derive the pleasure of her giving birth to first child. Allegations of infidelity on the part of Saroj towards her husband Rishi Kumar by means of her having conceived a child through some third person were also being made by Shanti Parkash and Tarawati aforesaid. Getting fed up with this kind of life and leaving a suicide note Exhibit PB addressed to Tarawati keep of her husband Rishi Kumar, Saroj set her mortal remains on fire at 4.00 pm on 15th April, 1984.