2025:CGHC:57855 Digitally signed by AVANISH KUMAR NAFR PATHAK Date:

2025.12.04

11:28:13 +0530 HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRA No. 533 of 2005

1 - Krishan Ram Kawar S/o Shobhit Ram Kawar Aged About 21 Years R/o Village- Lalutola, O/p Chichola, P.S- Churia, District Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh. 2 - Mahesh Kumar Kawar S/o Shobhit Ram Kawar Aged About 29 Years R/o Village- Lalutola, O/p Chichola, P.S- Churia, District Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh. 3 - (Deleted) Shobhit Ram Kawar (Died) (As Per Hon'ble Court Order Dated 26-11-

2024)

4 - (Deleted) Rajeya @ Rajiya Bai (Died) (As Per Hon'ble Court Order Dated 26-11-

2024)

5 - Saroj Bai W/o Mahesh Kumar Kawar Aged About 25 Years R/o Village- Lalutola, O/p Chichola, P.S- Churia, District Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh.

... Appellants versus State Of Chhattisgarh, through Police Station, Chhuriya, Distt. Rajnandgaon (CG)

... Respondent For appellants : Mr. H.S. Ahluwalia, Adv.

For Respondent : Mr. Prateek Tiwari, PL.

(Hon’ble Mr. Justice Naresh Kumar Chandravanshi)

Judgment on Board

27-11-2025

1. The present appeal has been preferred by the appellants/accused under Section 374 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 against the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 23-6-2005 passed by learned Sessions Judge, Rajnandgaon in Session Case No. 155/2004, whereby each of the appellants/accused has been convicted under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (henceforth, 'IPC') and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 5 years with fine of Rs. 500/- each, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo additional rigorous imprisonment for one month.

2. Case of the prosecution, in brief, is that, marriage of Deepak Bai was solemnized with Jagdish son of appellant No. 3 Shobhit Ram but prior to Gona Rashm, Jagdish died, therefore, marriage of Deepak Bai was solemnized with appellant No. 1 Krishna Kanwar (younger brother of late Jagdish) as per rituals. After few days of marriage, accused persons/ her in-laws harassed her on trivial issues. Social meeting of their Kanwar society was also conducted on 27-12-2003 and 13-1- 2004, despite that, behavior of accused persons towards her did not improve. Hence, deceased Deepak Bai left her matrimonial home on 25-5-2004 and went to her parental home at village Machadur, where she committed suicide on 26-5-2004 by hanging. Merg report Ex. P-1 was lodged by her father Chatur Singh (PW 1) at PS Ambagarh Chowki, Distt. Rajnandgaon, on the basis of which, an un-numbered FIR (Ex. P-16) was registered at PS Ambagarh Chowki and numbered FIR (Ex. P-19) was registered at PS Chhuria, Distt. Rajnandgaon against appellants/accused. Inquest of dead body of the deceased was prepared vide Ex. P-3 and post mortem was got conducted from Dr. Vikas Bambeshwar (P.W. 10), in which vide PM report (Ex. P- 17), he opined that, cause of death was asphyxia because of hanging. Statements of witnesses under Section 161 of the Cr.P.C. were recorded. The letters written by the deceased were seized vide seizure memo Ex. P-4. A notebook was seized from the place of incident vide Panchnama (Ex. P-5). Hand written notebook of the deceased was seized vide Ex. P-7. The letter written by the deceased to her father was seized vide Ex. P-8. Register of the society meeting (Ex. P-13)

was seized vide Ex. P-11. Accused persons were arrested.

3. After usual investigation, charge sheet under Section 306/34 of the IPC was filed against the accused persons before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, who committed the case to the Sessions Judge, Rajnandgaon, who tried the case.

4. Learned Sessions Judge framed charge against the appellants/accused under Section 306 of the IPC, who abjured the guilt and claimed trial.

5. In order to establish the charge against the appellants/accused, the prosecution has examined following witnesses and exhibited following documents :- WITNESSES PW 1 Chatur Singh P.W. 10 Dr. Vikas Bambeshwar PW 2 Nandlal Salame P.W. 11 P.R. Khare PW 3 Bisobai PW 12 Anand Kumar Th