IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA Cr. Appeal No. 118 of 1993 Date of decision: 25.03.2008 State of Himachal Pradesh ... Appellant Versus Jalam Singh … Respondent Coram : The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Surjit Singh, Judge. The Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.K. Ahuja, Judge. Whether approved for reporting?1 No. For the appellant: Mr. P.K. Sharma, Addl. Advocate General with Mr. P.M. Negi, Deputy Advocate General. For the respondent: M/s Bimal Gupta and Karan Singh, Advocates. Per V.K. Ahuja , J.: This is an appeal filed by the State of H.P. against the judgment of the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge, Sirmour at Nahan, dated 9.11.1992, vide which the respondent was acquitted of the charge framed against him under Sections 498-A and 306 I.P.C. Briefly stated the facts of the case are that on 9.6.1989 at 10.30AM, a report was lodged with the police by Mansa Ram, Ex. Pradhan that he was working in his field in the morning when at about 9.30AM one Raj Kumar resident of village came to him and told him that Dano Devi wife of the respondent had fallen into the well at about 8.00AM while 1Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes. 2 taking out water from there. The dead body taken out from the well was sent for postmortem examination. An inquest report was prepared and a report was subsequently made by PW-2 Ram Dayal, uncle of the deceased, that the deceased had committed suicide. The case was registered and during investigation it was found by the police that the marriage in between deceased Dano Devi and respondent was solemnized in the year 1984. Three children were born from this wed lock and it was alleged that the respondent used to beat the deceased without any rhyme or reason under the influence of liquor and used to deprive her of food and clothings and had turned her also out of the matrimonial home. On conclusion of the investigation, the challan was filed before the Court which was committed to the learned trial Judge who tried the respondent leading to his acquittal. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the record. The submissions made by the learned Additional Advocate General were that there was sufficient evidence to hold that the ingredients of the offence under Section 498-A I.P.C. were proved and, therefore, the findings to the contrary of learned trial Court are liable to be reversed. On a perusal of the evidence led by the prosecution it is clear that there is one eye witness to the occurrence, namely, PW-8 Smt. Jamila who had also gone to fetch water from the well on the day of the occurrence. She stated that the deceased was known to her and they used to meet occasionally, though there was no friendship in between 3 them. Both of them were present on the village well on the date of occurrence and after she and one Jeeto took water from the well, they started towards their houses. However, deceased Dano Devi remained at the well and when PW-8 Smt. Jamila reached at a distance of 25 yards from the well she heard some sound and observed that deceased Dano Devi was not present on the well. They raised an alarm, people came there and body of Dano Devi was taken out from the well. A perusal of the statement of this witness clearly shows that she did not even whisper at that time that the deceased who was known to her earlier made any complaint that she had been given beating or maltreated by her husband or that she looked depressed or that she presumed that because of her condition it was likely that the deceased may have committed suicide. Her statement is clear that they talked to one and another and she did not observe anything abnormal and as such, the deceased had fallen down in the well accidentally. During the course of investigation, no opinion of any expert or any other person was taken that the condition of the well was such that it was surrounded by wall and there was no likelihood of any person falling accidentally in the well. It follows from the above discussion that the findings recorded by the learned trial Court holding that the prosecution had failed to prove that it was a case of suicide and had concluded that it was a case of accidental fall. Therefore, ingredients of the offence under Section 306 I.P.C. cannot be said to have been proved, once there was no proof that it was a case of suicide and, therefore, the respondent could not have been held guilty for abatement under Section 306 I.P.C. PW-6 Dr. Lokesh 4 Sharma who conducted the postmortem had admitted in the cross- examination that the injuries on the person of the deceased can be sustained if a person falls into a well accidentally. Coming to the findings recorded by the learned trial Court under Section 498-A I.P.C., the case was registered on the statement made by PW-2 Ram Dayal, maternal uncle of the deceased, in which he had now stated that the deceased had committed suicide. A perusal of the inquest report Ext. PA, which was prepared prior to the statement made by PW-2 Ram Dayal, he had no where complained that the deceased had committed suicide or was being maltreated by her husband and because of the beatings being given to her after consuming alcohol by the respondent, the deceased may have committed suicide. In his statement he had come up with the plea that after 1½ years from the marriage of deceased Dano Devi with the accused he had come to know that the accused had given severe beatings to the deceased. He stated that PW-1 Prem Chand, father of the deceased and other respectable persons went to the house of the respondent where it was found that the deceased had been severely beaten by the accused. The accused assured that no such thing would happen in future and thereafter, they lived happily till 1988 when again the accused started giving beatings to the deceased after coming home drunk. He stated that these beatings continued till the time of committing suicide by the deceased. In his cross-examination, he admitted that he does not remember in case he told the police about their visit to the house of the accused or seeing the deceased in the bad condition having been given beatings by the 5 respondent. He was confronted with his report Ext. PB in which it was not alleged specifically. The other witnesses in regard to misbehaviour by respondent are PW-1 Prem Chand, father of the deceased, PW-3 Mohd Sadiq, Numberdar of village of PW-1 Prem Chand and PW-5 Mela Ram, brother of the deceased. They all have stated similarly and according to the version of PW-1 this misbehaviour had started after 5 months from the marriage and two such occurrences were stated to have taken place. But in case this behaviour had continued for considerable time, it was quite natural that the matter should have been reported to the Panchayat, police or any other authority and the learned trial Court had drawn this conclusion after referring to the evidence. No record of Panchayat has been produced that any complaint was made to the Panchayat or the matter was resolved. The learned trial Court had also mentioned about the improvements made by the witnesses in their statements while appearing in the Court as compared to the earlier version given to the police. In view of the improvements made and the fact that the matter was not reported to the Panchayat or the police at any time and there are no specific date, month or year of any such beatings either in the statement made to the police under Section 161 Cr.P.C. or as such, in Court, the learned trial Court had come to the conclusion that the guilt of the respondent was not established under Section 498-A I.P.C. These conclusions and the fact that the case under Section 306 I.P.C. was not proved the conclusion drawn by the learned trial Court cannot be said to be perverse calling for an interference by this Court. We accordingly hold that there is no merit in the appeal filed by the appellant, which is liable to 6 be dismissed and the same is dismissed accordingly. The bail bonds furnished by the respondent are discharged. ( Surjit Singh ) Judge ( V.K. Ahuja ) March 25, 2008 Judge (BSS) 7