IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH SHIMLA Cr. Appeal No. 236 of 1998 Date of Decision: 17.6.2010. State of H.P. …Appellant. Versus. Ashok Kumar and others …Respondents. Coram: The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Deepak Gupta, Judge. The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Karol, Judge. Whether approved for Reporting? No. For the Appellant: Mr. Rajesh Mandhotra, Deputy Advocate General. For the Respondents: Mr. Himat Negi vice Mr. Ajay Sharma, Advocate. Per Deepak Gupta, J.(Oral). 1. This appeal by the State is directed against the judgement dated 20.02.1998 delivered by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge, Kangra Division at Dharmsala in Sessions Case No. 19-K/97 whereby he acquitted the accused of having committed offences punishable under Sections 306 read with Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code. 2. The admitted facts are that the deceased Darshana Devi was married to accused Shammi Kumar. Ashok Kumar accused is the elder brother of Shammi Kumar. 2 Rattan Chand and Nimmon Devi are the parents of Shammi Kumar and Nisha Kumari is the sister of Shammi Kumar. It is also not disputed that within three months of the marriage Smt. Darshana Devi committed suicide by hanging herself. It is not necessary to refer to the entire evidence relating to the suicide since this fact is not disputed by the accused and they admit that Darshana Devi died by committing suicide. The only question which has to be considered is whether the deceased was treated with cruelty by the accused or any one of them and by reasons of this cruelty she was instigated to committee suicide. 3. Before discussing the entire evidence in detail, at the outset it may be stated that there is no evidence of cruelty worth the name against accused Nisha Kumari (sister), Shammi Kumar (husband) and Nimmon Devi, (mother-in-law) of the deceased. In the entire evidence no allegation of cruelty has been leveled against them. The only allegation of cruelty is against Ashok Kumar and Rattan Lal, brother-in-law and father-in-law of the deceased. 4. The deceased committed suicide on 14.7.1995 and report in this regard was lodged by PW-7 Ramesh Chand with the police. It is not disputed that the next of kin of 3 the deceased were informed by her in-laws about the death of Darshana. They reached her house. Next day PW-2 Jagan Nath made a statement to the police Ext.PW- 2/A on the basis of which F.I.R. Ext.PW-15/A was recorded. In this statement he alleged that Darshana Devi visited her parental home 7-8 days after her marriage. She stayed with her parents for three days and went back to her matrimonial home. She again visited her parental home in the month of May 1995 and stayed there for 7-8 days before going back to her matrimonial home. In this statement it is alleged that Rattan Lal, father-in-law and Ashok Kumar brother-in-law had called him to their village and had complained to him that Darshana Devi was not doing any house hold work and was not listening to their requests. He pacified them and went back to his house. According to him, he again went to the village of the accused and at that time the deceased told him that her brother-in-law Ashok Kumar had given beatings to her and had told her that she should leave the matrimonial home. He stated that on 14.7.1995 also his sister was beaten by her father-in-law Rattan Chand. In this complaint he also alleged that Rattan Chand come to the village of the deceased at Narwana and complained to Jagan Nath that Darshana 4 Devi had run away from the house and when she returned home the next day he gave her 3-4 slaps. Thus according to Jagan Nath the deceased had committed suicide due to the ill-treatment meted out to her by her in-laws. On the basis of this statement F.I.R was lodged and investigation conducted. After completion of investigation challan was filed against the accused and all the accused were challaned for having committed the offences as aforesaid. The learned trial Court after conducting trial acquitted the accused. Hence the present appeal by the State. 5. PW-2 Jagan Nath is the brother of the deceased. His statement is similar to what he has stated in the original statement filed with the police. However, he made various improvements while appearing in Court. In Court he stated that when Darshana came home first time after her marriage, i.e. one week after marriage, she complained that she had been beaten by all the accused persons except her husband Shammi Kumar. This fact is not recorded in the statement Ext.PW-2/A. A suggestion was put to this witness that his sister Darshana had remained admitted in Mission Hospital at Kangra about 20-25 days prior to her death. According to him, he was unaware whether she was admitted to the hospital or not. 5 In cross-examination this witness also stated that he himself had been beaten by the accused which fact is also not mentioned in Ext.PW2-/A. In the original complaint there was no allegation against the husband, the sister- in-law and the mother-in-law but in Court this witness stated that all the accused persons except Shammi Kumar used to maltreat his sister. 6. PW-3, Soma Devi, is the wife of Hans Raj, another brother of the deceased. Her version is totally different. According to her, the deceased visited her parental home after one month of her marriage. At that time she did not make any complaint. After a few days, she again visited her parental home and on this occasion she complained that her brother-in-law Ashok Kumar had given beatings to her. This time she stayed in the house for 5-7 days and thereafter returned to the house of her in-laws. Whereas the brother PW-2 had feigned ignorance about the illness of deceased Darshana, this witness in cross-examination admitted that Darshana had remained admitted in Mission Hospital at Kangra for about four days and that she visited her in the hospital. In the hospital accused Shammi Kumar was attending upon Darshana. In fact, she goes on to state that her mother-in-law and brother-in-law and PW-2 Jagan Nath 6 had also visited the deceased in Mission Hospital, Kangra. This raises the question as to why PW-2 Jagan Nath told a lie in Court that he did not know that his sister was unwell and admitted in the hospital at Kangra. According to PW-3 when she went to meet her sister-in-law Darshana in the hospital she had already been discharged from the hospital and therefore she went to the house of the accused to meet Darshana. 7. PW-4, Lajo, is the mother of the deceased. Her version is similar to that of PW-3. However, there is one important contradiction in her statement. According to the mother, PW-3 Soma Devi never visited the house of the accused persons while Dharshana was ill. This witness also denied the suggestion that Dharshana was unhappy on account of her marriage with accused Shammi Kumar since she wanted to marry some other person. 8. PW-5, Jagtamba Kumari, is the younger sister of the deceased. Her version is totally different. According to her on the second day after the marriage Darshana had visited her parental home for the first time. Thereafter she again visited after 15 days and had no complaint against her in-laws. Thereafter, she again went back to her matrimonial home and came back to her parental home 20 days later. On this occasion, she complained to 7 her sister that accused Ashok Kumar had slapped her and the other accused persons had abused and maltreated her on the ground that she did not work since she remained ill. This witness in cross-examination admitted that her sister remained admitted in Mission Hospital for seven days where she had gone and visited her sister. She also admitted that the deceased was being looked after by all the accused and that the deceased had not complained of any maltreatment by the accused persons at that time. She had stayed with her sister for the night in the hospital but no complaint was made to her. Importantly, this witness has admitted that her sister (Darshana) had left the house of her in-laws once and stayed in the house of one Gujjar where she spent the night though according to her she left the house of her in-laws due to illness and maltreatment given by the accused. 9. PW-7, Ramesh Chand, also belongs to the same village as the accused. According to him he had never heard about any maltreatment given to the deceased Darshana. He also stated that on one occasion Darshana deceased had left her matrimonial home and stayed in the house of one Gujjar named Janga Ram. 8 10. PW-8, Dano Devi, is related to the father of the deceased, since her sister-in-law Geeta (Jaithani) was the sister of Jodha, father of Darshana. According to her she lived in the same village as the accused and she had got marriage between the parties settled. According to her, whenever the deceased met her she never made any complaint against the accused persons. In fact, according to her accused Rattan Chand had complained that the deceased is quarrelling with other members of his family and he wanted to leave Darshana at her parental home. 11. PW-11, Pritam Singh, has made allegations against all the accused. According to him on the night before the suicide Rattan Chand accused had called him to his house and Darshana had told him that all 4-5 family members had beaten her. Further according to him in his presence the husband had inflicted two slaps on Darshana. He, therefore, suggested that they should leave Darshana at her parental home. Next morning when he reached Rajiana bus stand at 8.30 a.m he found that all the accused except Rattan Chand were beating Darshana at the bus stand. Thereafter they all boarded the bus, the witness from the front door and Darshana & all the accused persons from rear door. However, according to the witness before the bus left the accused and Darshana 9 got down from the rear door and he realized this only when he reached Narwana. The statement of this witness is totally unbelievable. This was not even the case set up by the prosecution. He admitted that he is closely related the deceased since the father of the deceased (Jodha) was his wife’s brother. Therefore, he was an uncle of the deceased. There is no explanation why an uncle would see his niece being beaten up and not intervene in the matter. He admitted that he never told anybody including his sister about the occurrence which he allegedly witnessed both on the night before the suicide and on the morning of the suicide. This is totally unnatural conduct. In case, he had actually seen such occurrences he would have narrated the same to the parents and other family members of the deceased. According to him, he witnessed one occurrence on 13.7.95 and the next occurrence on the morning of 14.7.95. From 15.7.95 the police was visiting the village. It has also come in the evidence that a procession of about 50-60 persons from the village Narwana had gone to the village of the accused and the accused had been beaten up. Despite all these events happening this witness did not make a whisper about what he had allegedly seen and his statement was recorded by the 10 police on 20.7.1995 for the first time. Another reason to doubt the statement of this witness is that according to him Darshana was beaten with sticks by Ashok Kumar and Shammi Kumar but according to the medical report there was no injury mark on the person of the deceased except those relating to her strangulation by hanging. No reliance can be placed on the statement of this witness. 12. Similarly, no reliance can be placed on the statement of Sumna Devi PW-17. According to her, the deceased had told her once that her brother-in-law Ashok Kumar and father-in-law were not keeping her well and her brother-in-law had once slapped her. In cross- examination this witness admitted that she was not even a close friend of the deceased and there was no special reason why the deceased had told her her personal grievance. 13. It is true that in a matrimonial disputes like the present one and especially where the suicide has been committed within a period of three months of the marriage there may not be any independent witnesses and only the family members may be aware of the ill-treatment being meted out to the deceased. However, the statements of the family members should be consistent. While discussing the evidence various inconsistencies have been 11 pointed out in the statement of the witnesses. The statements do not tally with each other and it is apparent that the family members are not telling the whole truth. Whereas according to some of the family members the first complaint was made by Darshana on her first visit after 3-4 days of marriage. According to most of the family members on the first visit the deceased was happy and only on a subsequent visit a few days before her suicide she complained that she had been beaten by her brother-in-law Ashok Kumar. 14. As pointed out above, no complaint was ever made against her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and the husband. The family members have also contradicted themselves in as much as the brother feigned ignorance about the illness of his sister whereas all other family members not only admitted that she had remained unwell but also stated that they had visited her either in the hospital or in her matrimonial home. Even till that stage according to the younger sister the deceased had not made any complaint. Even if the prosecution is taken at its best one incident of slapping can be attributable to Ashok Kumar. This incident in all probability related to the occasion when the deceased spent the night outside her matrimonial home in the house of one Gujjar. This in our 12 view is a sufficient provocation for the brother-in-law to slap his sister-in-law. Since the sister has herself admitted that the deceased had lived for one night in the house of Gujjar the defence version that the deceased was not happy with her marriage is a plausible version. 15. In view of the various inconsistencies in the statements of the prosecution witnesses and the conduct of the deceased having left her matrimonial home and staying with a stranger for one night, in our considered view, the learned trial Court was fully justified in acquitting the accused. We find no merit in the appeal and the same is accordingly dismissed. The bail bonds furnished by the accused are ordered to be discharged. ( Deepak Gupta ) Judge. June 17 , 2010 ( Sanjay Karol ) ™ Judge.