JUDGMENT

Reva Khetrapal, J.—The State seeks leave to appeal against the judgment dated 30th July, 2005 of acquittal passed by the Court of the learned Addl. Sessions Judge in case FIR No. 215/2000, under Sections 498A/304B/302, IPC, Police Station Shakarpur, Delhi.

2. The facts in a nutshell are that four accused persons, namely, Jitender Garg (husband of the deceased), Mr. Rajinder Kumar Gupta (nandoi of the deceased), Ms. Kusum (nanad of the deceased) and Pawan Kumar (jeth of the deceased) were charge-sheeted for the offence of having caused the death of Smt. Rajni, the wife of Jitender Garg. It is not in dispute that Rajni died by strangulating herself with a ‘chunni’ after bolting the door of her room from the inside. Her MLC Ex. P.W.2/A prepared by Dr. Anant Kumat in Walia Nursing Home shows that a ligature mark was found around her neck, but no other external injury or mark was seen. The post-mortem report further confirms the finding of the ligature mark on the neck and the fact that no external injury was seen on the body of the deceased by Dr. K. Goel (P.W.1) who conducted the post-mortem. The cause of death was opined by Dr. K. Goel to be asphyxia, consequent upon pressure over neck. Thus, the post-mortem findings were consistent with suicide by hanging, and the ligature mark was specifically opined to be ante-mortem in nature.

3. The learned counsel for the State forcefully contended that the death of Rajni having taken place within 11 months of her marriage with Jitender Garg and she being pregnant with first child at the time of her death, the death must be attributed either to the commission of a crime or to the fact that the deceased was subjected to continuous torture which impelled her to commit suicide. According to the learned counsel the statements of P.W.4, P.W.5, P.W.6, P.W.7 and P.W.8 are consistent on one point that during the period of 11 months of marriage, the demand for dowry was continuously made and continued to be made till soon before her death. He submits that the trial Court failed to appreciate that minor discrepancies in the testimonies of the aforesaid witnesses were of no significance, and wrongly declined to convict the accused despite clear and cogent evidence against them. The learned counsel for the State also submits that the defence plea that the deceased was pursuing the career of modelling without the permission of the accused/husband in no manner discharges the burden placed on the accused persons to prove that the death of the deceased was not due to any cruel treatment/harassment for dowry. The modelling photographs of the deceased, the learned counsel urged, do not discharge the presumption enshrined in Section 113(B) of the Evidence Act.

4. In order to deal with the submissions of the learned counsel for the State, we have gone through the trial Court records summoned by us and in particular the testimonies of the witnesses examined by the trial Court. Broadly speaking, the witnesses examined by the prosecution may be classified into four categories. The first category comprises of the formal witnesses, on whose testimonies we do not propose to dwell. The second category is of official witnesses including P.W.1 Dr. Anant Kumar and P.W.2 Dr. K. Goel, P.W.3 Shri Ravi Dadhich, the concerned SDM and P.W.19, Sub-Inspector Radhey Shyam, the Investigating Officer of the case. The third category is of relatives of the deceased, namely P.W.4 Rajinder Gupta, who is the complainant and the brother of the deceased, P.W.5 Virender Kumar Gupta, who is also the brother of the deceased, P.W.6 Vidyawati, the mother of the deceased, P.W.7 Smt. Raj Rani, the bhabhi of the deceased and the wife of P.W.5, and P.W.8 Saroj Gupta, the sister of the deceased. The fourth category of the witnesses comprises of independent witnesses, neighbours etc. who are P.Ws. 9 to 12.

5. Adverting first to the testimonies of the relatives of the deceased on which reliance has been placed by the learned counsel for th