1 WP : 552/2011 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLAE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO.552 OF 2011 Mr.Rajesh Lachayya Dharap .... Petitioners/ & 4 Ors. (Accused 1 to 5) Vs. Mrs.Gangajamuna Rajesh Dharap @ Sangita Rajesh Dharap .... Respondent no.1 State of Maharashtra .... Respondent no.2 State CID .... Respondent no.3 Mr.Rajesh Dharap, petitioner no.1 in person. Mr. Mahesh Vaswani for respondent no.1. Mrs. U.V. Kezriwal, APP for State. Coram : Smt. R.P. SondurBaldota, J. Date : 12th December 2011. PC : 1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. 2. The short question that falls for consideration of this Court in this petition is whether pending disposal of the criminal proceedings, respondent no.1, the original complainant be permitted to withdraw the amount of Rs.6.00 lacs produced by the petitioners under protest. 2 WP : 552/2011 3. Respondent no.1 is the wife of petitioner No.1. The other petitioners are the parents, brother and sister of petitioner no.1. Respondent no.1 has filed complaint against the petitioners vide C.R. No. 223 of 2009 for the offence punishable under Section 498- A Indian Penal code. The petitioners had filed application for anticipatory bail before the Sessions Court in connection with the complaint. Respondent no.1 had opposed the application contending that part of the dowry i.e. the amount of Rs.6.00 lacs had not been returned by the petitioners. Therefore, the petitioners offered to deposit the amount in the court under protest. The petitioners dispute that amount of Rs.6.00 lacs was given as dowry at the time of marriage. Admittedly respondent no.1 has received all other articles like the clothes, jewellery, utensils etc. that form part of her Sridhan. In view of the offer made by the petitioners, order of anticipatory bail came to be granted to them. Thereafter the petitioners produced the amount which was taken in charge by the police by drawing seizure panchanama. 4. Then two applications came to be filed before the trial Court, one by the petitioners for investment of the amount of Rs.6.00 lacs in a fixed deposit pending the trial and the other by respondent no. 1 for interim custody of the amount. The trial court allowed the application of petitioners and rejected the application of respondent no.1. Aggrieved by the decision, respondent no.1 carried the orders in revision to the Sessions court. By the common order impugned in the present petition, the Sessions Court 3 WP : 552/2011 reversed the orders of the trial Court by allowing the application of respondent no.1 and dismissing the applications of the petitioners. 5. Petitioner no.1 who appears in person submits that the amount of Rs.6.00 lacs in question is not the amount seized by the Police during investigation. It was the amount agreed to be deposited in the court by the petitioners under protest, since the petitioners dispute that any amount was received by them in cash by way of dowry at the time of marriage of petitioner no.1 and respondent no.1. As against this, the learned counsel for the respondent no.1 submits that the fact that the amount has been seized by Police under panchanama indicates that it is in the custody and under the control of the court. Therefore, the Sessions court was correct in passing the order of interim custody in favour of respondent no.1. He also points out that there is sufficient material on record in the form of statements of witnesses to indicate that the amount of Rs.6.00 lacs was in fact given as dowry during marriage. It is the prosecution case that the amount had been collected from three sources and paid over to the petitioners. The witnesses have stated that they had withdrawn the amounts from their respective bank accounts and collected for payment to the petitioners. 6. Even if, there is a claim made in the statements of the witnesses recorded by the police about collection of the amount, the fact remains that the amount of Rs.6.00 lacs has been produced by the petitioners under protest, pursuant to the 4 WP : 552/2011 statement made by them at the time of hearing of their application for anticipatory bail. In that circumstance, the petitioners would be justified in submitting that the amount should not be handed over to respondent no.1 during the pendency of the proceeding. Admittedly respondent no.1 has received all other articles claimed by her as Sridhan. These articles had been received by her even prior to the complaint. Since the property in question is cash amount, and since payment of the amount at the time of marriage as dowry is seriously disputed by the petitioners, in my opinion, the appropriate orders to be passed on the applications were the orders passed by the trial Court. Hence, the rule is made absolute. The petition is allowed in terms of prayer clause (a). (Smt. R.P. SondurBaldota, J.)