IMPORTANT POINT
Letting guilty escape is not doing justice according to law.

JUDGMENT

B.C. Ray, J. – Special leave granted.

2. These appeals are at the instance of Gurbachan Singh the complainant against the judgment and order passed in Criminal Appeal No. 434 S.B. of 1984 by the High Court of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh acquitting the accused respondents of the charge under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code on setting aside the conviction and sentence passed by the Additional Session Judge on August 9, 1984 convicting and sentencing all the accused. The appeal was allowed on holding that there was no evidence on record that the accused at the time of commission of suicide by Ravinder Kaur, in any way instigted or abetted her to commit suicide and as such the prosecution failed to establish the charge against the accused and their conviction consequently can not be sustained.

3. The prosecution case is that the deceased Ravinder Kaur, daughter of Gurbachan Singh the complainant was married to Satpal Singh in Nov. 1982. After marriage, Ravinder Kaur started living in the house of her in-laws at Raja Sansi. She used to visit the house of her parents at Amritsar occasionally and during these visits, she used to tell them that her in laws were not happy with the dowry given to her and they used to taunt her and insisted her to bring more dowry and that they even used to taunt her that her parents at the time of the marriage did not serve them with proper meals. The accused also used to tell her that they were being offered fridge etc by the other parties in the marriage of accused Satpal Singh and that she has not brought the dowry expected from her parents. She was often told by them that she would be truned out of the house in case she did not bring more articles.

4. In November 1982, Gurbachan Singh visited the house of her in-laws at Raja Sansi where his daughter complained that the behaviour of her in-laws towards her was not cordial and that they were maltreating her for bringing insufficient dowry and they even taunted her that she was carrying an illegitimate child Hearing these complaints from her daughter, Gurbachan Singh brought her daughter to his house at Amritsar one day prior to Baisakhi, 1983 and his daughter continued to remain at his house for about eight days. Thereafter Satpal Singh his father Harbhajan Singh, accused and his mother Smt. Kanwal Dip Kaur along with Harjit Singh and Mohinder Singh maternal uncles of Satpal Singh came to the house of Gurbachan Singh at Amritsar and persuaded that he should send Ravinder Kaur with them where upon Gurbachan Singh told them that his daughter complained against the illtreatment and cruel behaviour towards her for bringing insufficient dowry and they also taunted her for this as well as for her illegitimate child and put pressure on her to bring more dowry. So he was reluctant to send her daughter back to her in-laws. Gurbachan Singh called Ved Prakash, President of the MahalIa Committee, Smt. Raj Kumari, a social worker living in the neighbourhood of Gurbachan Singh and one Ramesh Kumar to his house and all these comptaints and grievances were repeated in presence of these persons. The accused assured him that in future they would not maltreat and taunt her and that he would not receive any complaint against them. They also assured him that in future they would not ask her to bring more dowry. On these assurances of the accused Gurbachan Singh sent his daughter with the accused to Raja Sansi the house of the accused.

5. For about two months Gurbachan Singh did not receive any information from his daughter and so he sent his two daughters Surjit Kaur and Sajinder Kaur to Raja Sansi to the house of the in laws of Ravinder Kaur to enquire about her welfare. The said daughter of Gurbachan Singh went to the house of the in-laws of Ravinder Kaur on June 23, 1983 that is two clays prior to the death of Ravinder Kaur. The deceased complained to them about the torture as well as cruel behaviour of her in-laws as before and they have not stopped mal