The judgment established the importance of establishing a proximate link between alleged cruelty and the consequential death in cases of dowry deaths, and emphasized the presumption of innocence and the purpose of bail at the pre-conviction stage.

1. The present application has been filed by the petitioner under Section 439 Cr.P.C. read with Section 482 Cr.P.C. for grant of regular bail in case FIR No.713/2014, under Sections 498-A/304-B/34 IPC, registered at PS R.K.Puram, Delhi.

2. The petitioner is working as Assistant General Manager in the Reserve Bank of India and was residing along with his family members. His marriage was solemnized with the daughter of the complainant, named, Konica on 26th February, 2012, through newspaper matrimonial. The petitioner’s version is that no dowry articles were ever demanded by the petitioner or his family members at the time of marriage and whatever stridhan was given by the parents of the deceased at the time of marriage, the same was never demanded by the petitioner or his family members. On the day of the incident, i.e. 2nd October, 2014, Konica deceased locked herself in a room of her matrimonial house. Thereafter, the petitioner knocked on the door several times but received no response. He also tried to find her in the toilet. Thereafter, the petitioner made a call to the deceased’s brother, namely, Naveen and told him that the deceased had kept herself locked in a room, upon which the brother of the deceased replied to the petitioner that “solve your problem on your own”. With no option left, the petitioner rushed towards the balcony and cut the wire netting of the door of the room adjoining the balcony with the help of the knife and found that the deceased had hanged herself with the ceiling fan. Thereafter, the petitioner called her sister and took the deceased to the Rockland Hospital, where she was declared ‘brought dead’.

3. The petitioner is in judicial custody since 2nd October, 2014. On the date of incident, Konica deceased locked herself in a room of her matrimonial house and committed suicide by hanging herself. The charge-sheet in the matter has been filed on 29th December, 2014.

4. The father of the deceased Konica lodged the aforesaid FIR. He stated in the complaint that his daughter had done BBA, MBA, Ph.D. in Finance and was working as a Manager in the Punjab National Bank. At the time of her marriage, whatever demand was raised, it was fulfilled by them. One WagonR Car, Food & drinks, venue of marriage, etc. everything was done at the time of marriage as per their wishes but their daughter never seemed happy. She was not allowed to visit their house; in two years she had visited only 3-4 times and was allowed to stay only for 15-20 minutes. 20 days earlier when he called, then the petitioner did not to allow to talk to his daughter and stated that the relation of father-daughter is over after the marriage. When his daughter gave birth to a son, then also the family members of the petitioner talked to him in bad manner and said that “you did not bring anything upto our standards”. They tortured his daughter; her mother-in-law, husband, his three sisters and uncle together made this position of his daughter. They killed her.

5. The status report has been filed by the learned APP for the State who has strongly opposed the bail application of the petitioner. His contention is that two days prior to the incident, Konica was crying on telephone by informing her family members about the cruelty, harassment and the demand of car by her husband and her in-laws. It is further argued that on 1st October, 2014 one day prior to the incident, her brother Naveen and his wife met the deceased Konica at her office where she informed them about the harassment by the husband and others and apprehension of threat to her life and stated that she would commit suicide because of their cruelty. Under these circumstances, the learned APP for the State argued that, the deceased was living in a disturbed married life and in view of the gravity and nature of the offence coupled with the fact that the material witnesses are yet to be examined, the bail application should be rejected. It is stated that the earlier bail applicatio