By Court: All these four appellants charged under section 304 B/34 of the Indian Penal Code were put on trial along with other accused, namely, Lal Chand Modi, Parmeshwar Modi, Rit Lal Modi and Binod Kumar Choudhary, charged under section 201/149 of the Indian Penal Code whereas the accused, namely, Binod Kumar Choudhary was also charged under section 217 of the Indian Penal Code. The trial court, while acquitting other four accused persons of all the charges levelled against them, did find the appellants guilty for the offence under section 304 B/34 of the Indian Penal and, hence, sentenced them to undergo imprisonment for life.

The case of the prosecution is that the deceased Pushpa Devi having married Rajendra Modi in the year 1984 was living in her in-laws’ house at village Kusumdih under Mohanpur police station with her husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother-in-law, who are appellants soon after the marriage they started subjecting her to torture on account of non-fulfillment of demand of Rs.5000/-.

Further case is that while Om Prakash Agrawal (P.W.7), husband of elder sister of the deceased, was returning home from temple at 6.30 in the morning on 3.6.1986, he was told in the way that Pushpa Devi has died and the family members have been taking her to burning ghat for her cremation. On getting this information, when he came to burning ghat he found accused persons making preparation for consigning the dead body to flame. Thereafter he informed about it to one Deo Narayan Mirdha, Choukidar (P.W.9) and asked him not to allow the accused persons to consign the dead body to flame and then he came to police station and informed the Officer-in-Charge of Mohanpur Police Station, who sent one ASI, Ashok Rajak (P.W.12) to the burning ghat for making enquiry. Upon it, Ashok Rajak came to the burning ghat and forbade the accused persons from burning the dead body until the enquiry is made in this respect. Subsequently, he informed the Choukidar, who had been deputed at burning ghat, to allow them to consign the dead body to flame. Meanwhile, one Pradeep Kumar Agrawal (P.W.2), younger brother of Om Prakash Agrawal (P.W.7) sent a letter to the informant Bundi Sah (P.W.3) intimating therein about the death of Pushpa Devi. On getting this information, the informant Bundi Sah (P.W.3) came to the Mohanpur Police Station and gave his Fardbeyan (Ext.3) on 5.6.1986 alleging therein that the accused persons on account of non-fulfillment of demand of dowry had been subjecting the deceased to torture and ultimately they committed her murder. On the basis of said report, a formal first information report (Ext.4) was drawn and one Surendra Singh (P.W.11) took up for investigation and came to the burning ghat from where pieces of burnt bones iron bangles and other articles were seized under seizure list (Ext.5). In course of investigation, two letters, one being the letter written by the deceased to her father (Ext.2) and the other being a letter under which Pradeep Kumar Agrawal (P.W.2) had informed to the informant about the death of the deceased (Ext.2/1) were produced by the informant Bundi Sah (P.W.3) to the Investigating Officer(P.W.11), which were seized under seizure list (Ext.6).

On completion of investigation, police submitted charge sheet against the appellants and other accused persons including one B.K.Choudhary of Mohanpur police station, upon which cognizance of the offence was taken and in due course, when the case was committed to the court of sessions, charges were framed to which the appellants pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

The prosecution in order to bring the charges home has examined altogether 13 witnesses. Of them, Pradeep Kumar Agrawal (P.W.2), younger brother of Om Prakash Agrawal (P.W.7), Sharda Devi (P.W.4), elder sister of the deceased and wife of Om Prakash Agrawal (P.W.7) have testified that when they came to know that dead body of Pushpa Devi had been brought to burning ghat for c