FULWA DEVI @ DARSHANI DEVI Vs. SANJEEVAN RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The two appellants, mother and son between themselves, appeal to this Court by preferring their individual appeals challenging the judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Fast Track Court-II, Nawadah on 31.03.2010 and 05.04.2010 respectively in Sessions trial No.175 of 2009/236 of 2009. The appellants were tried jointly by being charged together for committing offences under Sections 304B/34 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code as also under Sections 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act and after being held guilty of committing those offences each of them was directed to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life under Sections 304B/34 of the Indian Penal Code and rigorous imprisonment for three years as also to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/- on account of being convicted of offence under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code. As regards the conviction of the appellants under Sections 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act each of them was directed to suffer rigorous imprisonment for six months as also to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- each. In none of the counts of the conviction of the appellants, there was a direction as to what could be the consequence if the appellants had not paid the fine imposed upon them and the learned Judge rather passed a consolidated order in that behalf, directing the appellants to suffer rigorous imprisonment for three years if they had not paid the fine imposed upon them.

(2.) Some of the facts are not disputed. The deceased Rekha Kumari who happened to be the daughter of Mana Rajbanshi (P.W.3) was married to appellant Sanjeevan Ram in the month of Baisakh, 2007. She was residing in the house of the appellants prior to 16.10.2008 and her dead body was found floating in the river water at village-Karnapur in the streams of river Sakri and that was retrieved from there. It is also not disputed that the deceased Rekha Kumari having been married for about a year, had not given birth to any child and further that no real cause of death of the deceased could be detected by the doctor who had held postmortem examination on her dead body. The other undisputed fact which appears from the evidence of the informant P.W.3 Mana Rajbanshi from paragraph-11 of his evidence, was that the family of the informant and that of the accused persons were of labourers and they used to earn their daily livelihoods after labouring for others.

(3.) In the above undisputed background, the allegations which were made by P.W.3 against the appellants through his written report dated 16.10.2008 were that after the marriage of appellant Sanjeevan Ram to the deceased Rekha Kumari, the appellants were pestering the informant for giving a television as also a V.C.P. and on account of not getting the demand much, he used to beat the lady up. It was stated that the appellant Sanjeevan Ram had come to the house of the informant on the occasion of Jivtia festival for taking his wife to his house but refused to take the lady back to his family fold unless he was paid Rs. 10,000/- and, lastly, he took the lady away to his house after he was paid Rs. 2,000/- . The informant stated that appellant Fulwa Devi @ Darshani Devi had given two repeated calls on two cellular phones bearing numbers 9939409062 and 900633570 stating that the deceased Rakha Kumari was suffering from diarrhoea and her condition had become serious and, as such, he should come. The informant stated that he along with his wife Gayatri Devi (P.W.4) and others of his family went to village-Karnapur and did not find the deceased Rekha Kumari, his daughter, in spite of search. He found that the two appellants had also deserted their house and in spite of quite some hectic search made by the informant, he neither could find out his daughter Rekha Kumari nor could the appellants. He, ultimately, suspected some foul play at the hands of the appellants and filed the written report complaining of the suspected killing of his daughter and causing her dead body to disappear.