1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO. 3956 OF 2007 Dist.: KOLHAPUR The State of Maharashtra ...Applicant Versus Shankar Vitthal Marde & Ors. ...Respondents. Mrs. A.S. Pai, Additional Public Prosecutor, for the Applicant Mr. Prashant P. Kulkarni for the Respondents. CORAM: B ILAL NAZKI and S.A. BOBDE, JJ. DATE: MARCH 11, 2008 P.C.:- The respondents were charged under Sections 498-A, 306 and 304-B read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and have been acquitted. Accused No. 1 is the husband of the deceased. Accused Nos. 2 and 3 are her in-laws. 2. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor states that there is no evidence for conviction under Section 304-B, but she states that acquittal under Section 498-A should be set aside. 3. We have gone through the judgment and record of the case. 2 There was no direct evidence produced by the prosecution in the matter with respect to any of the issues. Even the father and mother of the deceased, who appeared as witnesses, submitted that the deceased had jumped into the river, which caused her death. 4. The only evidence, on which reliance is placed by the learned Additional Public Prosecutor, is a diary alleged to have been written during her lifetime by the deceased. The trial Court found that no such diary was produced, but certain loose sheets of paper were produced by the mother of the deceased, who stated that while on one of her visits to the parents' home, the deceased had kept those papers in that house. No effort was made by the prosecution to prove that those sheets of paper were actually written by the deceased. Even the writing on those sheets was not compared with admitted writings of the deceased either by the forensic agency or by the Court, because no admitted writings were produced before the Court. The Court also found that even if those entries in the loose sheets are taken to have been written by the deceased, even then, there was nothing in those writings, which would suggest that an offence under Section 498-A or 306 was made. 5. We agree with the findings of the learned Sessions Judge, and feel that there is no ground to interfere with the acquittal. 3 Application is dismissed. BILAL NAZKI, J. S.A. BOBDE, J.