Rohtash vs State Of Haryana

2. Facts and circumstances giving rise to this appeal are that:

3. Aggrieved, the State preferred Criminal Appeal No. 146-DB of 1994 before the High Court. The High Court reappreciated the entire evidence and came to conclusion that there was nothing on record to show that Indro, deceased, died of fits; no medical evidence had been produced to show that she had been suffering from fits. There was sufficient evidence on record to show demand of dowry by the appellant from his father-in-law. The appellant had been making taunts and caused torture to the deceased on the ground of inadequate dowry. The demand by the appellant had been fully supported by Suresh (PW.2) who purchased the house of the complainant for a sum of Rs.12,000/-. Indro died within a period of one and a half years of marriage. The High Court convicted the appellant under Section 304-B IPC and imposed the punishment of 7 years rigorous imprisonment, further under Section 498- A IPC imposed the punishment of six months RI. In respect of other persons the order of acquittal passed by the trial court was maintained.

It may be pertinent to make reference to the relevant part of the deposition of witnesses. Jiwan (PW.1), complainant, deposed that her daughter had complained against the ill-treatment given to her by her husband, his parents and his elder brother Rajbir; they even taunted her that she belonged to “Bhukha-Nanga” family and that her father had not given adequate dowry. Rohtash accused also visited him and asked him to give Rs. 10,000/- so that he could settle himself in some business. Six months after the marriage, he gave Rs.10,000/- to Rohtash accused after selling his house. Her in-laws still continued to ill-treat her and raised a further demand of Rs.5,000/- on the pretext that they wanted to settle Rajbir, elder brother of Rohtash, in some business. On the fateful day of incident, Gopi Chand and Ram Kishan of Village Mandora came to him and told that his daughter Indro had consumed poisonous tablets and died.

The prosecution case has been that Indro, deceased, committed suicide by taking pills/poison. There is ample evidence on record and it has specifically been mentioned by the prosecution witnesses, particularly, Jiwan (PW.1), Fateh Singh (PW.3) and S.I., Inder Lal, I.O., (PW.6), that some broken pieces of bangles had been collected by the I.O. from the place of occurrence and broken bones and articles were collected from the cremation site and sent for chemical analysis to Forensic Science Laboratory. Unfortunately, none of the courts below has taken note of the FSL report though the documents had been marked as Ext.PH and Ext. PH1. The first document is report No. FSL(H) dated 29.5.1990 by the Forensic Science Laboratory, Haryana, Madhuban, Karnal, wherein the result of examination of bones and ashes is as under:

15. The High Court interfered with the order of acquittal recorded by the trial court. The law of interfering with the judgment of acquittal is well-settled. It is to the effect that only in exceptional cases where there are compelling circumstances and the judgment in appeal is found to be perverse, the appellate court can interfere with the order of the acquittal. The appellate court should bear in mind the presumption of innocence of the accused and further that the trial court's acquittal bolsters the presumption of innocence. Interference in a routine manner where the other view is possible should be avoided, unless there are good reasons for interference. (Vide: State of Rajasthan v. Talevar & Anr., AIR 2011 SC 2271; and Govindaraju @ Govinda v. State by Srirampuram Police Station & Anr., (2012) 4 SCC

Thus, appeal succeeds and is allowed. The appellant is given the benefit of doubt and the impugned judgment of the High Court dated 11.1.2007 is set aside. The appellant is acquitted of all the charges.