SATYA PRAKASH LAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 10/3/1989 passed by 4th Additional Judicial Commissioner, Ranchi, in Sessions Trial No. 495 of 1986 convicting all the three appellants under section 306 of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing each of them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years. He also held them guilty under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced each of them to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years. Further, it is directed that the sentences would run concurrently.

(2.) The First Information Report Ext-2 of this case was lodged by brother of the deceased (P.W. 6) Sudesh Kumar on 14/3/1986, at about midnight on the basis of which the police instituted a case under section 302/34 of the I.P.C. and took up investigation, P.W. 8 who is the investigating officer, submitted chargesheet against the appellants at the close of the investigation.

(3.) The prosecution case, in short, was that the deceased Anjun Kumari was married with Appellant No.1, Satya Prakash Lal in the month of May, 1984. The prosecution case further is that because of non-payment of dowry, the appellants, who are husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law, used to torture the deceased in various ways and also passed taunting remarks against her. She was subjected to abuse and mal-treatment at their hands inasmuch as occasionally she used to be beaten up and she was taken to fatherTs house but her husband brought her back in his house on 22/1/1986 and by that time-according to the F.I.R. he had also threatened her to do away with her life. On return to the matrimonial house, the deceased lady was again subjected to torture and mal-treatment and she being frustrated to lead a happy life, ultimately, according to the allegation, was killed in her house. Radhey Shyam and Shambhu Prasad are said to have informed about the commission of suicide of the lady to their parents. They came to the residence of her brother in the University Colony and informed about her death in that night and then the informant alongwith his friends P.Ws. 5,4 and 1 went to the house of his sister where she was residing and found her dead body lying on the floor. The informant had seen a round mark on the neck of his sister and also some scratches on her left hand. The inmates of the house and relatives said that the deceased lady committed suicide by hanging herself but the informant suspected if to be a case of homicide and thereafter went to Chutia police-station to institute the case and submitted written report and thereafter the police recorded the F.I.R. of this case.