BENGALI SAO Vs. RAM CHANDRA SAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the rural Indian Society, the social evil popularly described as bride burning does not appear to have shown a descending graph. Despite legislative enactments providing for stringent penal provisions distressing and sordid tale of young married girls becoming victims of dowry death is continuing. Death of Meena Devi is one in the chain of married girls becoming victims of lust for money and other materialistic objects of their in-laws.

(2.) The deceased Meena Devi, daughter of the informant Anandi Prasad (PW 1) of Nawadah was in the year 1983 married to the appellant Shambhu Kumar @ Shambhu Sao, son of Ram Chandra Sao resident of Gumti Road, Warsaliganj. Her Gauna was performed one and a half years after her marriage. Thereafter, spouses started leading conjugal life. As ill-luck would have it, soon after arrival of the deceasd Meena Devi in her matrimonial home her in-laws started subjecting her to cruelty and harassment to pressurise her to fetch scooter, television and cash worth Rs. 25,000/- as part of dowry from her parents. The deceased along with her husband. Shambhu Kumar visited her maternal house on 25.7.1988. Shambhu Kumar asked the informant to give him cash, television and scooter referred to above. He threatened him with dire consequences in case his demand was not fulfilled and supplied and he along with the deceased left for his village home after the informant expressed his inability to meet his demand at the moment saying that he would give him the aforesaid articles and cash at the time of marriage of his son Bijay.

(3.) It so happened that in the night intervening between the 9th and the 10th August, 1988 the deceased embraced unnatural death. In the next morning at about 9.00 a.m. the appellant Ram Chandra Sao went to the informant and said to him that his daughter Meena Devi was dead and making this statement he soon left for his house. The informant (P.W. 1) along with his wife Urrmila Devi (P.W. 4) and son Bijay rushed to Gumti Road, Warsaliganj where they found Meena Devi lying dead with burn injuries on her body. RW. 1 asserted that Meena Devi had been killed and set on fire by her in-laws as she could not satisfy their lust for money and other materialistic objects.