The appellate court must respect the presumption of innocence and not interfere with acquittal unless the trial court's conclusion is unreasonable.

JUDGMENT :

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant State under Section 378(1)(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgement and order of acquittal passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Panchmahal @ Godhara (hereinafter referred to as "the learned Trial Court") in Sessions Case No. 02 of 2007 on 28.02.2007, whereby, the learned Trial Court has acquitted the respondents for the offence punishable under Sections 498-A, 306 and 114 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereafter referred to as "IPC" for short).

1.1 The respondents are hereinafter referred to as the accused in the rank and file as they stood in the original case for the sake of convenience, clarity and brevity.

2. The brief facts that emerge from the record of the case are as under:

2.1 The accused No. 2 was married to deceased Narmada and accused No. 1 is the father-in-law, accused No. 3 is the uncle-in-law, accused No. 4 is mother-in-law and accused Nos. 5 and 6 are the sisters-in-law of the deceased Narmada. That all the accused used to tell the deceased that she was dark, short and did not know any household work and they did not want to keep her in the house and used to taunt her and physically and mentally harass the deceased. On 26/08/2006 between 17:00 hrs to 22:00 hrs., the deceased jumped into the well at Vadodar village and committed suicide and the complaint was filed by the complainant - Raysinghbhai Sorambhai Patel, the father of the deceased at Morva Police Station for the offence under Section 498-A, 306 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 being I-C.R.No. 74 of 2006 on 29/08/2006.

2.2 The Investigating Officer recorded the statements of the connected witnesses and seized the necessary documents and after completion of investigation, a chargesheet came to be filed before the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Godhara and as the said offences against the accused was exclusively triable by the Court of Sessions, the case was committed to the Sessions Court, Panchmahal @ Godhara as per the provisions of Section 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the case was registered as Sessions Case No. 2 of 2007.

2.3 The accused were duly served with the summons and the accused appeared before the learned Trial Court, and it was verified whether the copies of all the police papers were provided to the accused as per the provisions of Section 207 of the Code. A charge at Exh. 2 was framed against the accused and the statements of the accused were recorded at Exh. 3 to 8, wherein, the accused denied all the contents of the charge and the entire evidence of the prosecution was taken on record.

2.4 The prosecution produced the following evidence to bring home the charge against the accused.

ORAL EVIDENCE

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

2.5 After the learned Additional Public Prosecutor filed the closing pursis at Exh. 43, the further statement of the accused under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 were recorded, wherein, the accused denied all the evidence of the prosecution on record. The accused refused to step into the witness box or examine witnesse