IMPORTANT POINTS
When trial court ignores glaring facts emerging from deposition of witnesses, as also admission of the accused in the UDR complaint and fails to look for the relevant documents already available on the record and does not apply its mind to the scope of Section 174; verdict of the trial court shall be perverse liable to interference by the High Court.
When relevant and material facts are already part of charge under other provisions, conviction under a provision in absence of any charge framed under that provision would be permissible.
Once the charge of cruelty is proved u/s 498-A, presumption u/s 113A must be raised.

JUDGMENT :

Shiva Kirti Singh, J.

1. This appeal by special leave is directed against judgment and order dated 13.09.2007 passed by a Division Bench of High Court of Karnataka at Bangalore in Criminal Appeal No. 1409 of 2000 preferred by the State against judgment dated 16.09.2000 by First Additional Sessions Judge, D.K. Mangalore in SC No. 150/94 whereby the appellant and both his parents were acquitted for offences punishable under Sections 3, 4 and 6 of the Dowry Prohibition Act and under Sections 498-A and 304-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

By the impugned order High Court has reversed the judgment of acquittal in part. It has convicted the appellant, the husband of the victim lady, for the offence under Section 498-A with punishment of rigorous imprisonment (RI) of three years and a fine of Rs.5000/- with a default clause. The appellant has also been convicted for the offence under Section 306 of the IPC with RI for five years and a fine of Rs.10,000/-, again with a default clause. Both the sentences are to run concurrently. If realized, the fine amount is to be paid to PW-6 Gulabi, mother of the deceased, if she is alive.

2. Learned senior counsel Mr. P. Vishwanatha Shetty appearing for the appellant has raised three main contentions to assail the judgment and order under appeal. According to him, the judgment and order of acquittal was not a perverse judgment and required no interference by the High Court. Secondly, it is contended that in absence of any charge framed under Section 306 of IPC by the trial court the High Court should not have convicted the appellant under that Section. Lastly but not the least, is the contention that there is no evidence on record to justify the conviction of the appellant by the High Court for any of the charges.

3. Mr. V.N. Raghupathy learned counsel for the respondent has, on the other hand, strenuously refuted all the aforesaid three submissions and has placed reliance on the relevant materials on record as well as the discussions made by the High Court in the impugned order to fully support that judgment and order reversing the acquittal of the appellant to the extent indicated above.

4. Before adverting to specific contentions for deciding the main issue whether the impugned judgment and order requires interference, it will be useful and relevant to take note of the factual matrix of this case. The story of the deceased young lady, aged about 25 years who was forced to commit suicide by the unfortunate situation and circumstances surrounding her life, resembles the tale of so many similar young ladies who end their life due to untold miseries and hardships faced by them within the confines of the four walls of their matrimonial home. All of them enter such home with hope of leading a long and blissful married life but this hope, invariably, does not last long, nor their life. In the present case the victim left behind a son then aged about ten months and she was also mothering a life of twenty weeks in her womb. The deceased Rekha @ Baby was married with the appellant on 5.06.1991 and immediately she began her stay in matrimonial home with her husband and in-laws and a son was also born to them who on the date of her death i.e. 19.11.1993 was aged about ten months. There is no dispute regarding her death and even as per the Unnatural Death Report (UDR) exhibit Ex.P.20, lodged by the appellant with the local police station on 19.11.1993 at 9.45 a.m., she died of some poison which she had consumed allegedly because the appellant forbade her from going to her mother’s place in the morning hours of 18.11.1993. As described in the said report, the victim had consumed a poison which was kept for spray in the fields. She had been taken to hospital but expired there at around 8 a.m. As per version of the occurrence given by the appellant, the deceased and he were living a very happy life. He was satisfied with the money and gold given at the time of marriage as dowry and was apparently at a lo