Criminal Appeal (SJ) No. 959 of 2006 -------- Against the judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 17.11.2006 and 20.11.2006 passed by Shri Braj Nandan Prasad, Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No. 2, Jehanabad in S.Tr. No. 27 of 2003 / Tr. No. 822 of 2005. --------- 1. Dilip Ram, 2. Kuldip Ram, 3. Doman Ram, all sons of late Ramdewan Ram, 4. Jarlahi Devi, wife of Late Ramdewan Ram, 5. Nandu Ram, son of Lal Mohan Ram, 6. Rajesh Ram, son of late Nifikir Ram, 7. Shanichar Ram, son of late Ram Lagan Ram, all residents of village – Kaler, Police Station – Kaler, District – Arwal …………… Appellants Versus The State of Bihar ……….. Respondent --------- For the Appellants : Sarvshri Hemendra Pd. Singh, Upendra Kumar, Kumari Sujata Sinha, Advocates For the State : Shri Ajay Mishra, APP -------- P R E S E N T THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE DHARNIDHAR JHA ------------ Dharnidhar Jha, J. The present appeal arises out of the judgment of conviction dated the 17th day of November, 2006 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge-cum-Presiding Officer, Fast Track Court No. 2, Jehanabad in S.T. No. 27 of 2003/ Tr. No. 822 of 2005. By the impugned judgment, appellants no. 1 to 4, namely, Dilip Ram, Kuldip Ram, Doman Ram and Jarlahi Devi 2 were found guilty of committing offences under sections 304B and 201 IPC and each of them was directed to suffer RI for seven years and two years on the two respective counts, which sentences were to run concurrently. As regards appellant Nandu Ram, Rajesh Ram and Shanichar Ram, they were found guilty of committing offence under section 201 IPC and directed to undergo RI for two years. 2. Admittedly, Saketa Devi was married to appellant Dilip Ram and, as may appear from the written report, the marriage had taken place in the year 1997 whereafter she went to live with her husband in his house and on the day of occurrence she was also residing there. 3. The allegation is that after the deceased had come to her parents’ house from her matrimonial house in 1999, she was complaining that appellant Dilip Ram was demanding rupees twenty thousand in cash and due to not getting it, he was ill- treating the lady by assaulting her. It was further stated that after Donga, the lady went back to her matrimonial house and she sent an information to the informant,i.e.,her father P.W. 4 Mungeshwar Ram about the cruelty being meted out to her and he came to the house of the appellants no. 1 to 4 and told them that he was a poor man and would not be in a position to pay up the money demanded but still, appellant Dilip Ram was asking for rupees twenty thousand and was telling the informant that if his demand was not met, then his daughter might not be living in his house. 3 The deceased stated to P.W. 4, as per his statement, that she was badly beaten up on many occasions. The informant came back after having attempted to defuse the situation. 4. It was stated by the informant that after eight months of the above attempt made by him, his daughter again complained that appellant Dilip Ram, his brothers Kuldip Ram and Doman Ram and Jarlahi Devi had come together to assault her and packed her off to father’s house where she stated her tale of woes. The informant came with his daughter to the house of the appellants and implored them not to ill treat her, but the appellants no. 1 to 4 were not inclined to take the lady back into their family- fold, as a result of which the informant met almost all in the village to narrate him tales of woes and could any how, procure an undertaking from the accused to keep the lady in their family fold. It was stated by P.W. 4 that on 24.8.2002 he learnt from Rajaram Ram (P.W. 1) that his daughter had been murdered by being strangulated by appellant Dilip Ram, Kuldip Ram, Doman Ram and Jarlahi Devi, who thereafter burnt her dead body by pouring kerosene oil and threw it in the river Sone. The informant stated that after having learnt about the incident, he came to the village home of the appellants along with his brother Tapeshwar Ram (P.W. 5), son Satyendra Ram (P.W.2) and Nandu Ram (P.W. 3) to find that some feacal matter was spread in the room the deceased was living in and there were burnt pieces of nylon sari and rope. Odor of kerosene oil was coming out from the room. 4 None was found at the house and from the persons of the neighbourhood he could learn that the lady had been strangulated to death on 23.8.2002 and her dead body had been thrown into river Sone. 5. On the basis of the written report (Ext. 3), FIR (Ext. 6) was drawn up by P.W. 7, who investigated it to finally submit a report, sending up the appellants for trial. 6. During the course of inspection of the place of occurrence, as may appear from the evidence of P.W. 7 SI Birendra kumar Singh, found a 2 ½’ burnt nylon rope and an old pink colour blouse, gunny bags, partially burnt and partially burnt sari and, accordingly, those articles were seized by him after preparing seizure memo (Ext. 4). He recorded the statement of witnesses and sent up the appellants for trial. 7. The plea of the appellants in their defence, was that they were innocent and had falsely been implicated and, as a matter of fact, the deceased had died of diarrhea. 8. Seven witnesses came to support the prosecution charges. P.W. 1 Rajaram Ram, who had informed the informant about his daughter being strangulated to death and thereafter her dead body being cremated, did not support the story in any of its parts and he was, as such, declared hostile. P.W. 2 Satyendra Ram, the brother of the deceased and son of P.W. 4 was supporting the prosecution story on all parts so much so that he was supporting the statement of P.W. 4, in the written report that when the lady 5 was packed off to her father’s house after being treated with cruelty, the father with others had gone to the house of appellants no. 1 to 4 and had succeeded in getting an undertaking from appellant Dilip Ram. That undertaking had been marked as Ext. 2 and is available at page 38 of the lower court records. He has further stated that information about the death of the lady was received by him and others from P.W. 1 Rajaram Ram and further that he along with his father and P.W. 3 came to village Kaler to verify the correctness of the information and after going inside the house, found incriminating materials, like, partially burnt blouse or sari or partially burnt up nylon rope and those articles as per P.W. 2, were seized by P.W. 7. Likewise, P.W. 3 Nandu Ram has also supported P.W. 2 on all material parts of the prosecution story and has stated that after learning that the deceased was being ill treated and that she had been sent back to her parents house, they along with P.W. 4 went to the house of the appellants and during the course of resolution of the tangle, they succeeded in obtaining Ext. 2, an undertaking from Dilip Ram. 9. Thus, from the evidence of P.Ws 2 and 3, it does not remain in doubt that there was some act of cruelty, which was perpetrated upon the deceased and further that the acts of cruelty were perpetrated only because some demands for dowry in the form of cash of rupees twenty thousand had been demanded. Those facts have also been stated by P.W. 4, but when one considers the evidence of the father of the deceased and P.W. 2 6 Satyendra Ram, one could simply find that in his one line paragraph of examination-in- chief, P.W. 4 stated that his daughter was married to the appellant Dilip Ram eight years prior to his deposition in court and after two years there from, she had gone to her matrimonial house and when she came back from there, she did not complain about anything. P.W. 4 stated that there was no demand of any money by the appellant, especially, appellant Dilip Ram and further that she died, as per Rajaram Ram, of some illness. Same evidence comes from P.W. 3, who was initially supporting the prosecution story in cross-examination. P.W. 3 has stated in paragraphs 8 and 9 that when they went to village Kaler to find out the real reason behind the death/killing of the deceased Saketa Devi, he and others learnt that she died of some illness. He further stated that whenever he visited the deceased at village Kaler, she never complained of any ill treatment or torture. In paragraph 9 of his evidence he states that the deceased never complained about appellant Dilip that he ever ill treated her and further that Dilip was an innocent person. 10. Thus, on consideration of the evidence of the prosecution, what appears is that on the one hand, P.W. 2 was corroborating the story told by P.W. 4 in written report (Ext.3). That story was also supported by P.W. 3, Nandu Ram in his examination-in-chief but Nandu Ram (P.W. 3) in cross examination, was simply erasing the effect of his evidence in examination-in-chief and P.W. 4 who had initiated the prosecution 7 case, was simply resiling from his earliest statement and was not sticking up to his version, which he had put down in Ext. 3. Thus, a situation of doubt is created on account of no support coming from P.W. 4 and others of the death of the lady and that he had ever informed the informant about the death of the lady. It is true that some incriminating articles were recovered by P.W. 7, but it could be very difficult to say that those could be relatable to the appellants in killing the deceased. It could be simply conjecturizing on that situation merely on account of recovery of some articles. In addition to the above, what I further find is that appellants no. 5, 6 and 7 had been convicted under section 201 IPC for causing disappearance of the evidence of offence of dowry death by cremating the dead body, but the evidence is completely scars on their participation in cremation of the dead body with intent as to screening themselves from lawful punishment. 11. On account of the above discussion and reasons, I find that the prosecution had not succeeded in establishing the charges to the hilt, rather, there were many loopholes and dents in the prosecution case, which entitled the appellants to get the benefit of doubt and, accordingly, the appeal is allowed and the appellants are acquitted of the charges for which they were convicted by setting aside the judgment of conviction and order of sentence. All the appellants except appellant Dilip Ram are on bail. They shall be discharged of their respective bonds. As 8 regards appellant Dilip Ram, he is in custody. He shall be released forthwith, if not wanted in any other case. (Dharnidhar Jha, ) Patna High Court, 21st July, 2011, NAFR/Anil/