ORDER :

1. The present appeal is preferred against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 15th December, 2010, passed in Criminal Appeal No.22 of 2001 by the High Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla, whereby the High Court entertaining the appeal under Section 378(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) had dislodged the judgment of acquittal dated 8th September, 2000, passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Hamirpur, H.P., in Sessions Trial No.4 of 1998, whereunder the learned trial Judge had found that the prosecution had not been able to prove the offences punishable under Sections 498A and 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the accused persons, namely, the appellant-husband and his parents.

2. The prosecution case, in brief, is that the deceased, Meena Devi, entered into wedlock with Kishore Chand as second wife in May, 1992, as per the Hindu rites and customs. In the wedlock, a son and a daughter were born. After few years of marriage, as time rolled by, the husband started treating wife with cruelty and in 1994 she witnessed the first treatment of cruelty. The parents of the husband also joined in such treatment. As the facts would further unfurl, unable to tolerate such maltreatment, the deceased, Meena Devi, jumped into the well on 26th May, 1997 along with her son, Ajay Kumar, aged two and half years and daughter, Sunita Devi, aged four and half years and all of them breathed their last. After the death was revealed, the investigation commenced and after due investigation, charge-sheet was filed for offences punishable under Sections 498A and 306 IPC read with Section 34 IPC. Eventually, the matter was committed to the concerned trial Judge. The accused persons abjured their guilt and pleaded false implication.

3. The prosecution in order to substantiate its case, examined number of witnesses and the principal witnesses are PW-1, Beer Singh, PW-14, Prem Raj, the brothers of the deceased and PW-15, the father of the deceased. The other witnesses are basically formal witnesses.

4. During the course of investigation, the investigating agency had seized three letters, alleged to have been written by the deceased, Meena Devi, and all the three letters were exhibited before the learned trial Judge. Be it noted, the letters were sent for expert examination and eventually the trial Court opined that it was extremely difficult to place reliance on exhibit PW-13/A, which is the letter dated 19th March, 1997. The other two letters, however, were also not given credence to by the learned trial Judge on the foundation that there was a possibility that the same were written by the deceased but the said two letters did not reflect any allegation as regards the ill treatment. The learned trial Judge also found that there was no substantial oral evidence to record a conviction and, accordingly, acquitted the accused persons.

5. In criminal appeal the High Court found that the learned trial Judge had fallen into grave error by ignoring the letter i.e. PW-13/A, for there was no justification not to give credibility to the same. At this juncture, be it stated that an innovative argument was put forth before the High Court that the deceased and the two children accidentally fell into the well, but the same did not weigh with the High Court for the simon pure reason the High Court found that where the well was constructed, no signs of skid was available and it was not a situation where the deceased had gone to the well to fetch water or to do anything and, therefore, the plea of accident was absolutely far fetched. As is perceived from the judgment of the High Court, it has basically placed reliance on the testimony of the brothers and other supportive evidence and the letter written by the deceased vide exhibit PW-13/A.

6. On the aforesaid analysis, the High Court altered the conviction and convicted the appellant under Sections 498A and 306 IPC read with Section 34 IPC and found the appellant and