CRR No.2280 of 2002 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CRR No.2280 of 2002 Date of Decision : 31.01.2011 Santokh Singh …Petitioner Versus Sewa Singh and others …Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI -.- Present: Mr. Tapan Yadav, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. S.S. Chandumajra, D.A.G., Punjab. *** AJAY TEWARI, J. (ORAL) This petition has been filed against the acquittal of the respondents No.1 to 3 in case F.I.R. No.36 dated 13.02.2000 registered under Section 304-B IPC at Police Station Kahnuwan. The case of the prosecution in short is that the deceased was married to the respondent No.1 about 5/6 years back and they had three children. Further allegation is that deceased was being CRR No.2280 of 2002 -2- tortured on account of dowry demand and she ultimately died of poison on 02.02.2000. Learned counsel for the respondent-State has argued that present is a case where the basic ingredient of dowry death is made out since the deceased died within 7 years of her marriage and thus the onus was wrongly placed on the prosecution to prove the case. As per learned counsel for the respondent-State it was for the accused-respondents to rebut the presumption about guilt. Having gone through the judgment of the learned trial Court I am however constrained to disagree with this argument. The learned trial Court has noticed that admittedly the deceased was taken to the hospital by her-in-laws; that the parents and other relatives of the deceased were allowed to attend the last rites; that there is no explanation for the delay of 11 days in lodging the F.I.R. and that the prosecution witness had embellished their testimony in various ways since many of the allegations made in the trial had not been made in the statement made before the police under Section 161 Cr.P.C. The learned trial Court has also relied upon the statement of DW-1 who, apart from being Sarpanch of the Village of the respondents was also related to the petitioner as his sister was married into the family of the petitioner. He had categorically deposed that the deceased had remained sick for some CRR No.2280 of 2002 -3- days prior to the death and later on she died. Also none of the relatives of the deceased had made any objection at the time of the funeral of the deceased. In this view of the matter, this revision is dismissed. ( AJAY TEWARI ) January 31, 2011 JUDGE ashish