NANUDI ALIAS KANUDI Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN challenge is the judgment and order dated 23.3.1989 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Sikar in Sessions Case No.13/1987 convicting the appellants under Section 306 and 498-A IPC and sentencing them to suffer rigorous imprisonment for six years and to pay a fine of Rs.500 each, in default, to undergo simple imprisonment for six months for their conviction under Section 306 IPC. Thereby, they were further sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for two years and to pay fine of Rs.200 each, in default, to undergo simple imprisonment for one month for their conviction under Section 498-A IPC. Both sentences were directed to run concurrently.

(2.) I have heard Mr.V.P.Vishnoi, learned counsel for the appellants and Ms.Alka Bhatnagar, learned Public Prosecutor, Rajasthan. The genesis of the prosecution case is traceable to the written information lodged on 20.9.1986 with the Police Station, Kotwali, Sikar by one Onkar Mal, the father of deceased Smt.Sua alleging assault and torture on her by the appellants and her father-in-law since after her marriage to the appellant No.3-Om Prakash about eight years back. It was also alleged that the deceased was even denied food. The report disclosed that on 19.9.1986 at about 8:00 a.m. one Pyarelal, Mushtak and appellant-Om Prakash visited the house of the informant at Village Ranoli and informed him about the sudden disappearance of deceased Smt.Sua from her matrimonial home. According to the informant, on receiving such information, he alongwith Nand Ram, Uda Ram, Laxmanram and others, proceeded to the house of the appellants, but on reaching there, did not secure any satisfactory clue about the whereabouts of Smt.Sua. After a futile search for the whole day at about 11:00 a.m. on 20.9.1986, when the informant went to the police station to lodge the report, he was told by an unknown person that some clothes and chappals of a lady had been noticed lying near Vyasji's well, and that, some human like substance was also visible inside the same. Hearing this, the informant, alongwith others, accompanied by the police, went to the place where the well was located and inside the same, Smt.Sua's dead body was found floating alongwith the body of her recently born child aged about 17 days. The informant alleged in the report that Smt.Sua had, by the unbearable torture unleashed on her by her in-laws, been compelled to commit suicide. The police, on the basis of this report, registered an FIR, Ex.P-8 at 3:15 p.m. Meanwhile, at about 10:45 a.m. acting on the report submitted by the informant as above, the police did visit the well, and in course of the investigation, recorded the statement of informant Onkar Mal to the effect that the death of Smt.Sua had occurred due to her fall in the well.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the appellant has argued that even if the evidence adduced by the prosecution is accepted on its face value, no offence under Section 306 IPC is made out against the appellants, and therefore, the impugned judgment and order, to that extent, is liable to be set aside. Referring to the evidence of PW-4, Rukma, who had been examined by the prosecution to prove the atrocities committed on the deceased by her in-laws stemming from the demand for dowry, and even otherwise, the learned counsel has urged that absence of any indication thereof in the FIR renders the prosecution version wholly incredible. Mr.Vishnoi argued that the post-mortem report clearly indicated absence of any ante mortem injury ruling out any possibility of her murder. As the injuries had apparently been sustained by the deceased as a result of her voluntary fall in the well, the appellants by no means, could have been convicted under Section 306 IPC, he urged. Learned counsel has however, fairly conceded that he had no issue vis-a-vis the evidence on record bearing on Section 498-A IPC. He however, in categorical terms, emphatically urged that the charge under Section 306 IPC against the appellants had not been proved, and thus, the conviction of the appellants under the said provision of law is patently illegal. He relied on the decisions of the Apex Court in Mahendra Singh and Anr.Vs. Gayatribai, 1995 Supp(3) SCC 731; Sohan Raj Sharma Vs. State of Haryana, AIR 2008 SC 2108; Kishangiri Mangalgiri Goswami Vs. State of Gujarat, AIR 2009 SC 1808 and of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Sanagala Yagna Sree Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, 1996 CRI.L.J.1249.