CHABI KARMAKAR & ORS. versus THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL
[2024] 8 S.C.R. 796, Supreme Court of India, 2024
Outcome: Disposed off
Segment: Facts
[2024] 8 S.C.R. 796 : 2024 INSC 665
Chabi Karmakar & Ors.  
v. 
The State of West Bengal 
(Criminal Appeal No.1556 of 2013)
29 August 2024
[Sudhanshu Dhulia and J.B. Pardiwala, JJ.]
Issue for Consideration
The appellants have been convicted u/ss.498A, 304B and 306 
r/w.s.34 of the IPC. The Trial Court had convicted sister-in-law 
(appellant no.1), husband (appellant no.2) and mother-in-law of 
the deceased and sentenced them to suffer life imprisonment, 3 
years R.I and 10 years R.I for offences u/ss.304B, 498A and 306 
of IPC respectively, along with fine and other default stipulations. 
Both the conviction and the sentence of the present appellants 
have been upheld in appeal and the High Court.
Headnotes†
Penal Code, 1860 – s.498A, 304B and s.306 r/w. s.34 – 
Evidence Act, 1872 – s.113 – Victim-deceased committed 
suicide by hanging herself in her matrimonial house – The 
deceased was alone at the time of the incident and the 
appellant No. 2, the husband was not in the house at the 
time of the incident – The case of the prosecution is that 
there was a harassment of deceased which was connected 
to the demand of dowry, which led the deceased to commit 
suicide:
Held: During the pendency of the appeal, one of the appellants 
i.e. appellant no. 3 (mother-in-law of the deceased) had passed 
away and the case against her stands abated – From the evidence 
which has been placed by the prosecution, there are certain 
facts that have been proved beyond any doubt which are: (i)
That the deceased died within seven years of marriage; (ii) The 
death was by suicide in her matrimonial house; and (iii) There 
was harassment at the hands of her in-laws and particularly by 
the husband; (iv) And that there was marital discord between 
husband and wife – As far as appellant no.1 (sister-in-law of 
deceased) is concerned, she is a married woman and at the 
relevant point of time, admittedly, she was residing with her
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Chabi Karmakar & Ors. v. The State of West Bengal 
family at her matrimonial home – There is no specific evidence 
that has come in the form of any of the prosecution witnesses 
that may connect appellant no. 1 to the commission of the 
crime – After going through the evidence of PW-1, PW-3, PW-4 
and P16 (who are the brother, father, mother and cousin of the 
deceased respectively), it becomes clear that the deceased faced 
cruelty and harassment at the hands of her husband (appellant 
no.2) which compelled her to commit suicide – However, these 
witnesses did not state that such cruelty and harassment was 
in connection with the demand for dowry – Trial Court raised a 
presumption u/s. 113B of Evidence Act to convict the appellants 
u/s. 304B of IPC – In the instant case, it has not been proved 
by the prosecution that the deceased was subjected to cruelty 
soon before her death in connection with the demand of dowry 
and hence it is not a case of dowry death u/s.304B of the IPC – 
After having considered all the relevant aspects of the matter, 
and the evidence of the prosecution, this Court is of the opinion 
that a case of abetment of suicide u/s.306 of IPC and cruelty u/s. 
498A of IPC is made out against the appellant No. 2, although 
the offence u/s.304B is not made out and consequently, the 
conviction of appellant no.2 u/s.304B of IPC is set aside – With 
respect to the offences u/ss.306 and 498A, the appellant No. 2 
is convicted and
sentenced to undergo three years of rigorous 
imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 25000/- on each count – Also, 
appellant no.1 is acquitted for all the offences. [Paras 4, 9]
Case Law Cited
Charan Singh alias Charanjit Singh v. State of Uttarakhand [2023] 
3 SCR 511 : 2023 SCC OnLine SC 454; Rajinder Singh v. State 
of Punjab [2015] 2 SCR 835 : (2015) 6 SCC 477; State of Madhya 
Pradesh v. Jogendra & Anr. [2022] 2 SCR 295 : (2022) 5 SCC 
401 – referred to.
List of Acts
Penal Code, 1860; Evidence Act, 1872.
List of Keywords
Section 498A of Penal Code, 1860; Section 304B of Penal Code, 
1860; Section 306 of Penal Code, 1860; Presumption u/s. 113B of 
Evidence Act; Matrimonial house; Marital discord; Cruelty; Suicide 
by hanging; Dowry; Harassment.
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Case Arising From
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No. 1556 
of 2013
From the Judgment and Order dated 29.06.2012 of the High Court 
of Calcutta in CRA No. 414 of 2009
Appearances for Parties
Ms. Arundhati Katju, Ms. Shristi Borthakur, Ms. Ritika Meena, Ms. 
Pinki Aggarwal, Sailesh Kumar Gupta, Mrs. Priya Puri, Advs. for 
the Appellants.
Srisatya Mohanty, Ms. Astha Sharma, Abhijit Pattanaik, Advs. for 
the Respondent.
Judgment / Order of the Supreme Court
Order
1.	
The appellants have been convicted under Sections 498A, 304B and 
306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The Trial Court 
had convicted sister-in-law (appellant no.1), husband (appellant no.2) 
and mother-in-law of the deceased and sentenced them to suffer 
life imprisonment, 3 years R.I and 10 years R.I for offences under 
Sections 304B, 498A and 306 of IPC respectively, along with fine 
and other default stipulations. Both the conviction and the sentence 
of the present appellants have been upheld in appeal and the High 
Court has dismissed the appeal. During the pendency of the appeal, 
one of the appellants i.e. appellant no. 3 (Sova Rani Karmakar, the 
mother-in-law of the deceased) had passed away and the case 
against her stands abated. 
2.	
The brief case of the prosecution is as follows: 
The deceased, Sonali Karmakar, and the appellant No. 2, Samir 
Karmarkar were married in March 2003, and out of the wedlock, 
there is a son
who was born on 4.9.2004 (Now 20 years of age). 
On 2.5.2006 the deceased committed suicide by hanging herself in 
her matrimonial house. The deceased was alone at the time of the 
incident and the appellant No. 2, the husband was not even in the 
house at the time of the incident. The appellant no. 2 was informed 
and the deceased had been taken to the Krishnanagar hospital
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Chabi Karmakar & Ors. v. The State of West Bengal 
where she was declared dead. An inquest report was conducted at 
the hospital and a post-mortem was conducted on 03.05.2006 by 
Dr. Ajit Kumar Biswas (PW-15). Post-mortem report shows that there 
were ligature marks around the neck of the deceased and the nature 
of the ligature marks shows that it is a case of suicide. Apart from 
the ligature marks, there were no other ante-mortem injuries on the 
body of the deceased. The report also showed that the deceased 
was 22 years of age at the time of her death. 
An FIR was lodged by the brother of the deceased at Krishnaganj 
Police Station, Nadia on 07.05.2006 i.e. after 5 days of the incident, 
alleging that his sister i.e. the deceased was being harassed by 
her in-laws on demand of dowry made prior to her death. A case 
was registered under sections 498A/304B/34 and a chargesheet 
was filed. Thereafter, Trial Court vide order and judgment dated 
5.6.2009 convicted the present appellants and mother-in-law under 
Sections 498A, 304B, 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal 
Code. The case of the prosecution is that there was a harassment 
of deceased which was connected to the demand of dowry, which 
led the deceased to commit suicide. 
3.	
Prosecution witnesses PW-1, 3 and 16 have all deposed that there 
was a demand of dowry about which they were informed when 
the deceased had come to her maternal house soon before her 
death. The learned counsel
for the State would argue that there is 
evidence in the form of PW-4 that appellant no. 2 was also having 
an extramarital affair with another woman which led to frequent 
discord between the deceased and appellant no. 2 and this was 
another cause of her harassment. 
The learned counsel for the appellants would, however, argue that 
this cannot be construed as a demand for dowry and would not 
come within the definition of dowry as defined under Section 2 of 
the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 which reads as under:
“Definition of ‘dowry’ – In this Act, “dowry” means any 
property or valuable security given or agreed to be given 
either directly or indirectly –
(a) By one party to a marriage to the other party to the 
marriage; or
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(b) By the parent of either party to a marriage or by any 
other person, to either party to the marriage or to any 
other person, 
At or before [or any time after the marriage] [in connection 
with the marriage of the said parties, but does not include] 
dowry or mahr in the case of persons to whom the Muslim 
Personal Law (Shariat) applies.”
The point which is made by learned counsel for the appellants would 
be that although a demand can be made either before or “any time 
after the marriage”, it should be in connection with the marriage 
of the said parties. The counsel for the appellants further argued 
that the demand for dowry has not been fully established by the 
prosecution hence the death as occurred on 02.05.2006 cannot be 
termed as a dowry death. 
4.	
We have heard arguments and counterarguments from both parties 
and have gone through the material on record. From the evidence 
which has been placed by the prosecution, there are certain facts 
that have been proved beyond any doubt which are: 
(i)	
That the deceased died within seven years of marriage;
(ii)	
The death was by suicide in her matrimonial house; and 
(iii)	 There was harassment at the hands of her in-laws and 
particularly by the husband; 
(iv)	 And that there was marital discord between husband and wife. 
5.	
As far as appellant no.1 (sister-in-law of deceased) is concerned, 
we are of the view that the prosecution has failed to place any 
credible
evidence for the involvement of appellant no. 1 i.e. the 
sister of appellant no. 2 and sister-in-law of the deceased. Moreover, 
appellant no. 1 is a married woman and at the relevant point of 
time, admittedly, she was residing with her family at her matrimonial 
home. There is no specific evidence that has come in the form of 
any of the prosecution witnesses that may connect appellant no. 1 
to the commission of the crime and the Trial Court as well as the 
appellate Court have not considered this aspect as it should have 
been considered on the weight of the evidence which was placed 
by the prosecution.
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Chabi Karmakar & Ors. v. The State of West Bengal 
Now, the only question left to be determined is regarding the guilt 
of appellant no.2 (husband).
6.	
After going through the evidence of PW-1, PW-3, PW-4 and P-16 
(who are the brother, father, mother and cousin of the deceased 
respectively), it becomes clear that the deceased faced cruelty and 
harassment at the hands of her husband (appellant no.2) which 
compelled her to commit suicide. However, these witnesses did 
not state that such cruelty and harassment was in connection with 
the demand for dowry. With respect to the demand for dowry, they 
have just made some general statements which are not sufficient 
to convict the appellants under section 304B of IPC.
7.	
Trial Court raised a presumption under section 113B of Evidence 
Act to convict the appellants under section 304B of IPC. The High 
Court did not go into the question of whether the trial court was right 
in relying upon section 113B of the Evidence Act. 
In Charan Singh alias Charanjit Singh vs. State of Uttarakhand 2023 
SCC OnLine SC 454, where there were allegations against the 
husband that he was subjecting the deceased therein on the demand 
of a motorcycle and some land, this Court in relation to Section 113B 
of Evidence Act and section 304B of IPC, had noted that:
“21…………………It is only certain oral averments 
regarding demand of motorcycle and land which is also 
much prior to the incident. The aforesaid evidence led by 
the
prosecution does not fulfil the pre-requisites to invoke 
presumption under Section 304B IPC or Section 113B of 
the Indian Evidence Act……
22. XXXXXXX
23. On a collective appreciation of the evidence led by 
the prosecution, we are of the considered view that the 
prerequisites to raise presumption under Section 304B 
and Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act having not 
being fulfilled, the conviction of the appellant cannot be 
justified. Mere death of the deceased being unnatural in 
the matrimonial home within seven years of marriage will 
not be sufficient to convict the accused under Section 
304B and 498A of IPC.”
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Similarly, in the case at hand, it has not been proved by the prosecution 
that the deceased was subjected to cruelty soon before her death 
in connection with the demand of dowry and hence we are of the 
opinion that this is not a case of dowry death under Section 304B 
of the Indian Penal Code. PW-1 and PW-3 had only stated that 
deceased used to tell them about her torture. PW-4 (mother of the 
deceased) did not speak about any demand of dowry after marriage. 
Moreover, this witness had said that appellant no.2 used to assault 
her deceased daughter as the deceased had objections to the illicit 
relation of appellant no.2 with another woman. PW-16, who is the 
cousin of the deceased, had deposed in court almost a year after the 
testimony of PW-1, 3 & 4 and his deposition regarding the physical 
assault of the deceased in connection with the demand of dowry 
is also not believable. Considering the aforesaid, in our view, the 
trial court erred in raising a presumption under Section 113B of the 
Indian Evidence Act, even though the demand for dowry was not 
established. 
8.	
On the other hand, the learned counsel for the State of West Bengal 
would rely on two judgments of this Court, seeking appellants’ 
conviction under Section 304B of IPC, both of which were decided 
by Three Judges’ Bench of this Court: Rajinder Singh vs. State of 
Punjab (2015) 6 SCC 477 and State of Madhya Pradesh v. Jogendra 
& Anr. (2022) 5 SCC
401.
The facts in Rajinder Singh (Supra) were entirely different. In that 
case, the deceased had died due to consumption of poison and there 
were specific allegations against in-laws in the form of evidence from 
the deceased’s father, who had given credible evidence that the 
in-laws were demanding money for the construction of the house. 
There was also evidence of giving a she-buffalo to pacify the in-laws. 
Father of the deceased therein further deposed how the Sarpanch 
and Ex-Sarpanch of their village went to the matrimonial home of 
the deceased for reconciliation where the father of deceased had 
promised to give money after harvest of crops. 
Jogendra (Supra) was decided by taking into account the peculiar 
facts of that case where the evidence of PW-1 therein contained 
specific allegations of constant demand for dowry. It was stated that 
deceased was asked to raise Rs.50,000 for the construction of house.
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He further stated that there was even an attempt by the ‘people of 
society’ to settle the matrimonial discord between the parties.
In paragraph 9 of Rajinder Singh (Supra), this Court had discussed 
the ingredients of Section 304B of IPC as follows:
“9. The ingredients of the offence under Section 304-B 
IPC have been stated and restated in many judgments. 
There are four such ingredients and they are said to be:
(a) death of a woman must have been caused by any 
burns or bodily injury or her death must have occurred 
otherwise than under normal circumstances;
(b) such death must have occurred within seven years of 
her marriage;
(c) soon before her death, she must have been subjected 
to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any relative 
of her husband; and
(d) such cruelty or harassment must be in connection with 
the demand for dowry.”
The evidence placed before us, in the case at hand, is not sufficient 
to prove the fourth ingredient i.e. cruelty or harassment in connection 
with the demand for dowry, as laid down by the abovementioned case.
9.	
All the same, having considered all the relevant aspects of the matter, 
and the evidence of the prosecution, we are also of the opinion that 
a case of abetment of suicide under Section 306 of IPC and cruelty 
under Section 498A of IPC is made out against the appellant No. 
2, although the offence under Section 304B is not made out and 
consequently,
we set aside the conviction of appellant no.2 under 
Section 304B of IPC. With respect to the offences under Section 
306 and 498A, we convict the appellant No. 2 and sentence him 
to undergo three years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 
25000/- on each count. Both the sentences shall run concurrently 
and in default of fine, he shall undergo further imprisonment of 3 
months. Further, we direct that the fine payable shall be paid to the 
nearest relative of the deceased within a period of 3 months from 
today. The appellant no.2 shall surrender before the concerned Court 
within four weeks from today and undergo the remaining sentence.

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Also, we allow the appeal with respect to appellant no. 1 by acquitting 
her for all offences in present case. As she is presently on bail, so 
she need not surrender. 
The Appeal is disposed of accordingly.
Pending application(s), if any, shall stand(s) disposed of.
Result of the case: Appeal disposed of.
†Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan