The court affirmed that demand for dowry and harassment must be proven as significant factors in determining the conviction for dowry death under IPC Section 304-B.

JUDGMENT :

Narendra Kumar Vyas, J.

1. Since both the appeals are arising out of the same crime number and are related to the same offence, therefore, they are heard analogously and are being disposed of by this common order.

2. These criminal appeals have been preferred by the appellants under Section 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 28.02.2005 passed by Eight Additional Sessions Judge (FTC) Bilaspur (CG) in Sessions Case No. 364 of 2003, respectively, whereby the appellants have been convicted and sentenced in the following manner:-

3. Brief facts giving rise to case as unfolds from the documents available on record are that on 06.11.2002 merg intimation No. 54 and 55 of 2002 under Section 174 CrPC was made by point man of Railway namely Baisakhu, stated that the dead body of woman and her daughter were found at between Hathband to Bhatapara Railway Station and cause of death was mentioned as the deceased with one child chopped off by train. On 11.11.2002 the appellant lodged Rojnamcha Sanha No. 716 before Police Station Civil Line stating that his wife along with daughter has left the house without informing to anybody and despite search was made but the victim was not found.

4. Further case of the prosecution is that complainant Gendram who is father of victim made a written complaint (Ex.P-6) on 20.11.2002 at Police Station - Civil Line, Bilaspur, alleging that his daughter’s father-in-law informed his son on 06.11.2002 at about 1. 00 PM that victim along with her daughter left the house on 06.11.2002 at about 7.00 o’clock in the morning. His son has informed this to the complainant at village Hardi, as such he immediately rushed to the house of his son-in-law and inquired about it from them and asked him to search but he has refused to search the victim and when she was not traced out upto 14 days then on apprehension that the in-laws and husband might have committed some incident with his daughter. It has also been contended in the complaint that before date of incident, father-in-law of victim demanded Rs. 12,000/- from the complainant and Rs. 1,00,000/- from his elder son Rajkumar on phone.

5. It is also alleged by the complainant that his daughter was subjected to torture for demand of dowry, harassment and subjected to physical assault by the appellant/husband in drunken condition and by her father-in-law for demand of dowry which has compelled her to commit suicide. The Police investigated the matter and recorded the statements of the family members, other witnesses under Section 161 CrPC and on the basis of written complaint; FIR (Ex.P-8) was registered at Police Station Civil Line-Bilaspur under Section 306, 34 of the IPC against the appellants. The dead body of the deceased was recovered and sent for postmortem; doctor who conducted the postmortem opined that the cause of death was due to syncope on account of crushed injury haemorrhage caused by train.

6. After completion of the investigation, charge sheet was filed before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Bilaspur, who in turn committed the case to the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Bilaspur which was registered as Sessions Case No. 364 of 2003.

7. The prosecution in order to prove the guilt of the appellants examined 12 witnesses Uttamram Jogi (PW-1), Girja Bai (PW-2), Rajendra (PW-3), Sanat Kumar Lahare (PW-4), Sitaram Jaiswal (PW-5), Baisakhu (PW-6), Gendram Benarjee (PW-7), Umdhi Bai (PW-8), V.K. Mishra (PW-9), Awadesh Singh (PW-10), Ramesh Kumar Kurre (PW-11), Dr. Rajendra Maheshwari (PW-12), Vivek Shukla (PW-13) and exh