Crl. Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 -1- .... IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. .... Criminal Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 Date of Decision : 31.01.2008 Vinod Kumar ... Appellant Versus State of Punjab. ... Respondent CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ADARSH KUMAR GOEL, HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S.D. ANAND. Present : Mr. Dheeraj Bali, Advocate, for the appellant. Mr. Rajesh Bhardwaj, Deputy Advocate General, Punjab, for the respondent. S.D. Anand, J. We, sentinels of the nation on the front of Administration of Justice, cannot resist observing at the very out set that the present case exemplifies greed/cruelty of the worst form, beating all acts which may be enumerated in terms of the facts-related precedents. Bestiality and depravity are the two facets which run through the proven act of the appellant who was convicted by the learned Trial Court (in case FIR No.31 dated 21.2.2002, under Section 302 IPC, P.S. Division No.3, Ludhiana) under Section 304-B IPC on a charge of having caused death of his wife Gita Rani, whose marriage with the appellant lasted little less than three months. Babu Lal PW2, had three female children and two male children, Gita Rani deceased being one of the former category. Her marriage with the appellant was solemnised on 26.11.2001. After about one month of the marriage, the appellant informed Babu Lal that he (former) Crl. Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 -2- .... wanted to raise a loan of Rs.1 lac from an indicated private financier. He requested the latter to stand guarantee for him. Babu Lal declined. After about ten days thereof, the appellant telephonically informed Babu Lal that he needed a sum of Rs.40,000/- and required the latter to stand guarantee for him. The response on the part of Babu Lal was no different this time too. Though Babu Lal was otherwise inclined to give a sum of Rs.10,000/- in cash to the appellant but his wife Laxmi Devi PW3 forbade him from doing so. On 13.2.2002, Babu Lal his wife Laxmi Devi went over to visit Gita Rani at her matrimonial home. There, the appellant required Laxmi Devi to arrange some amount of funds on interest for utilization by him. Laxmi Devi pleaded inability to concede that request. Thereafter, Babu Lal and Laxmi Devi returned to their house. On 18.2.2002, Rekha Rani (an aunt of Gita Rani) went over to the house of the appellant to meet Gita Rani but the latter did not permit the former to have any conversation with her. The appellant did that with a view to compel Gita Rani to get him some money from her parental house. This fact was intimated by Gita Rani to Babu Lal. It was with the above presentation that Babu Lal went over to the police after the death of Gita Rani. In the course thereof, he also indicated, with certainty, that Gita Rani had been done to death by the appellant (and his acquainted relations) by burning. At the trial, the prosecution examined PW1 Dr.S.K. Sharma who, along with Dr. Navpreet Kaur, had conducted the post mortem examination on the dead body of Geeta and found the following facts:- “(i) Burns were present all over the body except that back of both legs and soles of teeth. (ii) Length of the legature clothes was 19” around the neck.” After the receipt of the report of the Chemical Examiner PW1 Dr. S.K. Sharma opined that “organophosehoros compound poison was detected in the viscera and so the cause of death was declared due to organophosphorous, poison, strangulation and burns. The burns were antimortem.” In the course of cross-examination, Dr. Sharma also opined Crl. Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 -3- .... that “the ligature mark on the person of deceased could not be due to hanging and it is due to strangulation, as there is injuries mark on the neck on front side.” PW2 Babu Lal and PW3 Laxmi Devi are parents of the deceased. PW4 HC Mohan Singh and PW10 HC Pawan Kumar are witnesses of link evidence. PW5 Constable Ram Saran, a qualified draftsman in the employment of police department, had prepared scaled site plan Ex.PD of the place of occurrence. PW6 SI Surjit Singh and PW7 SI Kuldeep Singh are the two Investigating Officers of the case. PW8 HC Darshan Singh, a photographer in the employment of the police, had photographed the dead body of the deceased with digital camera and he proved the photographs Ex.P31 to Ex.P40. PW9 ASI Mohinder Singh was posted in Division No.3, Ludhiana on 25.2.2002 and, on the directions of the then SHO, Police Station, Division No.3, Ludhiana, he arrested the appellant and brought him from Delhi, where the appellant was under detention at Police Station, Shankarpur, Delhi. PW9 ASI Mohinder Singh had also got the post mortem examination conducted on the dead body of Gita and had deposited the sealed parcels containing viscera and documents with MHC Pawan Kumar. Appellant Vinod Kumar offered plain denial of the allegations and pleaded as under:- “ I am innocent and have been falsely implicated in this case. The deceased was having a stone in the gal bladder and due to that fact she died. Due to her death her father became vindictive and falsely implicated me in the present case. I along with deceased was living separately from other accused.” The appellant did not adduce any evidence in defence. The appellant is in appeal against the finding of conviction recorded against him by the learned Trial Court. Mr. Dheeraj Bali, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant, argued that there is complete want of evidence to prove that there was any dowry related torture of the deceased at the hands of the appellant which could justify the conviction of the appellant for an offence under Section 304 B IPC. It was argued, in the context, that all that Babu Lal had attributed to the appellant was the latter's insistence that the former Crl. Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 -4- .... should furnish guarantee for him for the indicated sum. (As per the prosecution allegations, the appellant initially wanted Babu Lal to stand guarantee for a sum of Rs.1 lac. Later on, he diluted the amount to Rs.40,000/-). It was further argued that Ex.PA (the first information report lodged by Babu Lal) does not, at all, attribute any dowry-related torture to him. The plea advocated is completely devoid of merit. Law is certainly not an entity which would retain a static character in the context of interpretation. In the present case, there is a precise averment in the course of the earliest presentation to the police that the appellant initially wanted Babu Lal to stand guarantee for him for the payment of Rs. One lac. When Babu Lal declined, the amount was diluted to Rs.40,000/- and the request reiterated after about 10 days thereof. The furnishing of guarantee, by the very nature of things, involves a financially onerous liability. If the principal debtor would not pay off, the guarantor shall have to bear the brunt of payment. In fact, it is a matter of common knowledge that the creditor is entitled to proceed against either the principal debtor or the guarantor. The choice is his. The guarantor cannot grudge that it is the principal debtor which should be proceeded against in the first instance. The demand aforementioned on the part of the appellant was, thus, nothing but one form of extracting a financial benefit from his father-in-law, i.e. Babu Lal PW2. At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the fact that there is a precise averment as well in the course of Ex.PA that the appellant did desire arrangement of funds for him on interest when Babu Lal and his wife Laxmi went over to visit the appellant and Gita Rani. That PW7 Lachhmi Devi declined to agree is an altogether different story. Apart therefrom, the above facts cannot be appreciated in isolation from the proven facts that the appellant denied to allow access to Rakha Rani (an aunt of the deceased girl) to have conversation with Gita Rani. The marriage between the appellant and Gita Rani was not even three months old. The only inference, deducible in the proven circumstances of the case, is that each act of the appellant was aimed at compelling the parents of the Gita Ran to part with money. The learned counsel for the appellant, then, argued that there is Crl. Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 -5- .... no direct evidence to prove that it was not an act on the part of the appellant which led to the death of Gita Rani. The plea raised thereby is illogical and completely oblivious of the fact that, in the opinion of Dr. S.K. Sharma, PW12, “organophosehoros compound poison was detected in the viscera and so the cause of death was declared due to organophosphorous, poison, strangulation and burns. The burns were antimortem.” Here, thus, was a case in which the appellant did not want to take any chances in the accomplishment of the 'job' i.e. Causing the death of Gita Rani on account of her inability to fulfil the (dowry) demand raised by him. The plea shall stand negatived accordingly. Learned counsel for the appellant proceeded thereafter to argue that the prosecution presentation deserves outright dis-allowance in view of the fact that an attempt, abortive though, had been made by Babu Lal and Laxmi Devi to implicate members of the natal family of the appellant, who were acquitted by the learned trial court. It cannot be accepted as an absolute proposition of law that a prosecution plea has to be discarded in toto just because a part of it has been found to be false. We cannot help observing that it is a matter of common observation that the members of natal family of a girl, who lose her on account of dowry-related torture, would be inclined to implicate as many members of deceased girl's in-laws family as possible. It might well be due to the fact that they nurse a grievance against the entire family. The addition of name of other relations of the husband would also be on account of the fact that the members of natal family of the girl would hardly have had any access to the goings-on within the forewalls of the matrimonial home and they would be inclined all the inmates of the matrimonial house to be a party to the episode. We are, thus, not persuaded to find any force in that submission. In his indefatigable quest for exoneration of the appellant from liability, the learned counsel argued that there is no evidence, documentary or otherwise, to the effect that the deceased girl had ever complained of her dowry-related torture to her parents. Here again, the learned counsel is not on a firmer footing. In Crl. Appeal No. 329-DB of 2007 -6- .... the Indian conventional society, the first effort of the girl and also the members of her family would be to sort out the issue amicably. They would resort to law as a last endeavour on their part. In the present case, the marriage was not even three months old. The appellant started raising financial demands within about one month of the marriage. There was, thus, hardly any occasion for the girl or members of her natal family to have on record any documentary or any other kind of evidence in the context of the dowry or dowry-related torture at the hands of the appellant. We would, accordingly, dismiss the appeal. ( S.D. ANAND ) JUDGE January , 2008. (ADARSH KUMAR GOEL) JUDGE sn Note : Whether to be referred to reporter : Yes/No