JUDGMENT

R.F.Nariman, J.

1. The facts of this case raises questions relating to one of the two great social evils practiced against the women of this country for centuries. In the facts presented before us, a young woman consumes pesticide having been driven to do so by repeated demands being made on her for money by the family into which she is supposed to merge her identity. Sati and dowry deaths have plagued this nation for centuries. Sati – the practice of sending a widow to her husband’s funeral pyre to burn in it -was first outlawed under British Rule in 1829 and 1830 under the Governor Generalship of Lord William Bentinck in the Bengal, Madras and Bombay Presidencies. General Sir Charles Napier, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in India between 1859 and 1861, is supposed to have said to the Hindu Priests who complained to him about the prohibition of Sati that “the burning of widows is your custom but in my country, when a man burns a woman alive, we hang them and confiscate all their property. Let us both, therefore, act in accordance with our national customs.”

2. It took free India many years before the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 was passed by P