IN THE PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: 01.09.2025 VIJAY KUMAR AND OTHERS ... Appellants VERSUS THE STATE OF PUNJAB ... Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE MANJARI NEHRU KAUL.

HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE H.S. GREWAL.

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Present: Mr. Vinod Ghai, Sr. Advocate with Ms. Kashish Sahni and Mr. Arnav Ghai, Advocates for the appellants.

Mr. Amit Rana, Sr. DAG, Punjab.

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H.S. GREWAL, J.

This appeal has been filed by the appellants against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 15.09.2004 passed by the then Addl. Sessions Judge, Moga, vide which the appellants have been convicted in case FIR No.44 dated 02.09.1999, under Sections 302, 149 and 304-B of IPC. Police Station Badhni Kalan, District Moga and have been sentenced as under:

1. Accused Vijay Kumar and Bhim Sain are sentenced under Section 302 IPC and accused Bal Kishan, Kamala Jain and Raj Bala are sentenced under Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay fine of Rs.5,000/-, in default to pay fine, to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for six months each.

2. All the five accused are sentenced under Section 304-B of IPC to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years.

The case of the prosecution is that complainant Naresh Pal got recorded his statement before ASI Gurdev Singh to the effect that he belongs to village Mullanpur Dakha. He has nine siblings i.e. two brothers and seven sisters. Six of them were married and one was unmarried. He and his brother Ramesh Kumar were running separate shops at Mullanpur Dakha; whereas their younger brother Jagdish Kumar was running grocery shop in Ludhina. Their sister Kavita Rani was married to Vijay Kumar son of Ram Kumar, resident of Badhni Kalan about four years ago. At the time of her marriage, her in-laws had raised demand of huge dowry, which was fulfilled beyond their (complainant’s) capacity. The in-laws of Kavita Rani raised a demand of petti-bed and one soda machine, which was also fulfilled, but despite the same, all accused persons started beating Kavita Rani and also started raising demand of cash amount on the pretext that they had to run a shop. Kavita Rani went on bearing all this and usually she used to tell her parents about this. But every time, her parents made her understand and sent her to her matrimonial home. Even thereafter, Kavita Rani was beaten by the appellants, and she was sent to her parental home with a further demand of brining Rs.20,000/-. On this, Vijay Kumar, complainant assured her that he would arrange the money within few days and pay the same to her in-laws personally by visiting Badhni Kalan. After some time, he visited Badhni Kalan and paid an amount of Rs.20,000/- to Vijay Kumar in the presence of his family members. But few days thereafter, Kavita Rani told the complainant on telephone that her husband and all his family members were harassing and beating her and were asking her to bring Rs.1,00,000/-. On

01.09.1999, complainant Naresh Pal and his brother Rajinder Kumar came to Badhni Kalan and in their presence itself, accused persons threatened Kavita Rani by saying that she would be allowed to stay in matrimonial home only if she would bring Rs.1,00,000/-; whereupon the complainant and his brother told the accused persons that they are poor persons and cannot arrange such a huge amount. By saying so, they came out of the house. At about 09.00/09.30 P.M., they went again to the house of Kavita’s in-laws and saw that Kavita Rani’s mother-in-law Kamala Jain and sister-in-law Raj Bala had caught hold of her by her arms, her Dewar, Bal Kishan had caught hold of her by hair, Vijay Kumar and his elder brother Bhim Sain had put electric wire around her neck and were pulling it from both the sides. The complainant and his brother raised hue and cry, but nobody came to rescue her. Vijay Kumar and his brother left Kavita Rani and ran after them in order to assault them. By that time, Kavita Rani had fallen on the ground. The com