Full Judgment Text
NON- REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 302 OF 2014
NARENDRA SINGH …APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
THE STATE OF MADHYA
PRADESH …RESPONDENT(S)
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 307 OF 2014
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 309 OF 2014
J U D G M E N T
ARAVIND KUMAR, J.
1. Three Criminal Appeals have been filed against the order of
the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur in Criminal
Appeal No. 1248 of 2002, wherein the High Court was pleased
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 1 of 19
to set aside the conviction of the accused persons namely
Nagendra Singh (Husband), Narendra Singh (Father-in-Law)
and Lila Singh (Mother-in-Law) u/s 302 of the Indian Penal
Code (IPC) acquitting them of the charge u/S. 302 of IPC.
However, the High Court upheld their conviction u/s 498A of
IPC, reduced the sentence to the period they have already
undergone and maintained the fine of Rs. 1000/- each as
imposed by the Learned Additional Sessions Judge.
2. Criminal Appeal No. 302 / 2014 has been filed by Narendra
Singh, the father-in-law of the deceased challenging his
conviction u/s 498A IPC. Criminal Appeal No. 309 / 2014 has
been filed by Pushp Raj Singh Baghel, the brother of the
deceased (defacto complainant) against all three accused
persons challenging their acquittal u/s 302 IPC and Criminal
Appeal No. 307 / 2014 has been filed by the State of Madhya
Pradesh against all three accused persons challenging their
acquittal u/s 302 IPC. Hence, all these three criminal appeals
are taken up together and disposed of by this common order.
3. The case of the prosecution as laid in the charge-sheet is that
the deceased woman had tied the matrimonial knot with
Nagendra Singh on 12.07.2000. To fulfill the burgeoning
demands of dowry, she was subjected to taunts and cruelty by
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her in-laws. Things took a steep turn for her on 15.04.2001
when she sustained burn injuries in the kitchen, i.e., within nine
months of the marriage. As per the prosecution, the husband of
the deceased had stuffed cloth in her mouth, poured kerosene
oil all over her body and set her on fire and was immediately
rushed to the Primary Health Center, Devlond, Madhya
Pradesh for treatment. She was examined by PW-6 / Dr. Rajesh
Mishra, who reported that 55% of her body was burnt, and it
was fatal to her life. There was a smell of Kerosene oil
emanating from her clothes.
4. Legal proceedings were put into motion. The next day, i.e., on
16.04.2001, her dying declaration came to be recorded by the
Executive Magistrate Shri Prabha Shankar Tripathi wherein
the victim stated that her husband, her mother-in-law and her
father-in-law used to demand car and on the day of the incident,
they stuffed cloth into her mouth and poured kerosene and set
her on fire. The same day, the police reached the residence of
the respondents, seized a burnt iron bucket, two plastic boxes
which smelt of kerosene and other oil, burnt jute bag,
matchsticks and burnt pieces of paper. Thereafter they seized
the place of occurrence, i.e. the kitchen. Since her condition
continued to worsen, on 17.04.2001 she was shifted to Gandhi
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 3 of 19
Medical Hospital, Rewa for treatment. A second dying
declaration was recorded by Shri KL Suryavanshi who was the
Deputy Superintendent of Police. In the second dying
declaration, there was a contradiction and the victim this time
stated that since her in-laws used to quarrel with her over
insufficiency of dowry, she poured Kerosene on herself and set
herself on fire.
5. On 18.04.2001, FIR No. 51 / 2001 was registered u/s 306 /
498A / 34 IPC and S. 3 / 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
(in short DP Act). She died while being treated in hospital on
22.04.2001. The next day, post-mortem was conducted by PW-
17 / Dr. SK Pathak, who stated that death was caused due to
cardio-respiratory failure as a result of ante mortem burn
injuries on her person. After completion of investigation,
chargesheet came to be filed against all the accused persons
u/S. 302 / 304 / 498A IPC and S. 3 / 4 of DP Act.
6. Ld. Additional Sessions Judge, Beohari (in short Sessions
Court) framed charges u/s 498A/304B and in the alternative u/s
302 / 34 IPC against all the accused persons.
7. The prosecution examined 23 witnesses. The accused persons
denied the prosecution case and they examined two defence
witnesses who deposed that the victim had locked the door of
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the kitchen from inside and committed suicide or that this
incident had taken place accidentally in the kitchen.
8. The Sessions Court convicted the three accused persons u/S.
498A / 302 r/w 34 IPC. However, the accused persons were
acquitted from the charge of S. 304B IPC. They were punished
with rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years and a fine
of Rs. 1,000/- each in default of payment of fine to further
undergo rigorous imprisonment for two months u/S. 498A IPC
and imprisonment for life along with a fine of Rs. 5,000/- each,
in default rigorous imprisonment for ten months u/s 302 r/w 34
IPC. Both the sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
9. Against the aforementioned judgment, the accused persons
preferred a Criminal Appeal No. 1248/ 2002 before the
Hon’ble High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur
challenging the order of conviction and sentence.
10. The High Court set aside the conviction of the accused persons
under S. 302 of IPC but upheld their conviction u/s 498A of
IPC and reduced the sentence to the period they have already
undergone and maintained the fine of Rs. 1000/- each as
imposed by the Learned Additional Sessions Judge.
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 5 of 19
Submissions made by Narendra Singh, the father-in-law of the
deceased person, the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 302 / 2014
11. The Appellant - Narendra Singh contended that he was in
service from 15.10.1970 to 10.02.2003 in the office of Land
Acquisition and rehabilitation Division under the State of
Madhya Pradesh. He has rendered a service of almost 32 years.
After the conviction of the petitioner, he was dismissed from
services. He has not received any service benefits nor is he
getting any pension. If the conviction and sentence for the
offence u/S. 498A IPC is not set aside, irreparable loss would
be caused to the petitioner and he will not get any service and
retirement benefits for the service he had rendered for 32 years.
That the deceased was tutored by her parents to name the
accused persons in the first dying declaration to fasten the guilt
on the accused persons including the appellant. The material
contradictions and omissions in the statements of PW-1 /
Brijendra Singh, PW-2 / Sita Singh and PW-3 / Devendra
Singh (father, mother and brother of the deceased person
respectively) u/S. 161 CrPC in the Trial Court to the effect that
the accused persons were demanding dowry. Further, they are
all interested witnesses and their testimony ought not to be
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believed and there is no corroboration. That the medical
evidence has not established that the burns were homicidal.
Submissions made by Pushp Raj Singh Baghel (brother of the
deceased person), the appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 309 / 2014
12.
That both the dying declarations are inculpatory in nature, and
in the light of the same, the accused persons could not have
been acquitted from the charge of S. 304B or S. 302 IPC. There
is no justification in discarding the dying declaration recorded
by the PW-18/Executive Magistrate Sh. Prabha Shankar
Tripathi. The dying declaration recorded at the first instance is
always uninfluenced and free from concoction and
embellishment. That High Court erred in acquitting the
accused of offences under Section 302 by applying the
principle of benefit of doubt. The accused persons had failed to
discharge their legal burden as contemplated u/S. 113B of the
Evidence Act.
Submissions made by the State (The Respondent in Criminal
Appeals No. 302 / 2014 & 309 / 2014 who is the Appellant in
Criminal Appeal No. 307 / 2014)
13. It is contended that first dying declaration of the deceased dated
16.04.2001 recorded by PW-18 / Executive Magistrate, Shri
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Prabha Shankar Tripathi, it was explicitly mentioned that
husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law of the deceased used
to demand a car from her parents as dowry and on their failure
to meet the said demand, they had stuffed cloth into her mouth
and poured kerosene all over her and had set her on fire with
the aid of a matchstick. The death had taken place within nine
months of her marriage and presumption arising under Section
113B had not been rebutted by them. There are multiple
infirmities and improbabilities which had crept in the evidence
of the witnesses. The deceased had died of cardio-respiratory
failure and suffocation due to the ante mortem burn injuries as
per the report and there is no reason to disbelieve the same. The
High Court had considered all the mitigative circumstances in
detail and has also given the benefit of the circumstances to the
accused and as such they pray for dismissal of the appeals filed
by the accused and seek for allowing the States’ appeal.
14. We have extensively heard the Learned Counsels and perused
the record.
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Analysis and Findings
15. What we have before us is an unfortunate tale of a young lady,
who, standing at the summit of her youth and expecting a life
of marital bliss and fortune, succumbed to flames within nine
months of her marriage.
16. Initially, the Trial Court held the husband and his parents guilty
of S.302 IPC by placing reliance on the first dying declaration
of the deceased which was recorded on 16.04.2001, and
holding that as per the first dying declaration, the accused
persons were guilty of murdering the deceased by setting her
on fire. However, the same was set aside by the High Court by
observing that firstly , there are two contradictory dying
declarations, and secondly , there is insufficient evidence to
hold the accused persons guilty of murder.
17. The main witnesses of this case are the family members of the
girl, i.e. PW-1 / Brijendra Singh (Father), PW-2 / Sita Singh
(Mother), PW-3 / Devendra Singh (Uncle) and PW-5 /
Pushpraj Singh (Brother) who have concurrently stated that the
deceased woman was being tortured and harassed for dowry,
particularly demanding a Maruti Car. However, their
examination could not withstand the test of the cross-
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 9 of 19
examination. Many contradictions have emerged. Firstly, the
witnesses did not state the factum of demand of dowry, or the
fact that the girl was being tortured at the hands of her in-laws
before the police, and secondly they did not have a proper
explanation as to why the said facts were missing from their
statements made before the police. It appears that the
testimonies rendered before the Court were an afterthought, as
the same improvements appear across the statements of all the
witnesses, with a jarring accuracy which was hitherto missing
in the statements recorded before the Police. Another reason
why the testimonies are doubtful is that apart from the family
members, there is not a single witness who can corroborate the
version of the prosecution. While in usual cases, the
testimonies of the family are enough to convict an accused
person, however, as a rule of caution, if there are improvements
or contradictions in the testimonies of the prosecution, then the
Courts must look for corroboration through other evidence,
which unfortunately is missing in this case.
18. Interestingly, the prosecution had produced a letter Ex. P-3
which was allegedly written by the deceased lady to her brother
PW-5 / Pushpraj Singh. It reveals her inner state of mind, the
stress of her married life, her discontentment with her in-laws,
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strong enough to pull on one’s heartstrings, but of little
evidentiary value, as the said letter was not subjected to
forensics and was not proved by a Handwriting Expert. The
letter remains unproved, and hence, unreliable.
19. PW-6 / Dr. Rajesh Mishra, working on the post of Assistant
Surgeon at Primary Health Center, was available on duty on
15.04.2001 at 7 AM when deceased lady was brought in a burnt
and unconscious state by the accused persons. If the accused
persons wanted the girl to die, there is no reason for them to
take the deceased lady to the hospital in the first place.
20. The prosecution has also examined the Neighbours, namely
PW-7, PW-8 and PW-9, who have all turned hostile before the
Court and not much could be deciphered from their testimonies
except that the neighbours were of the opinion that the
deceased victim had cordial relations with her in-laws.
21. Whatever may be the cause of her unhappiness, the reason for
her discontent, unless it is directly established that her in-laws
have done something so cruel in nature that she felt, they
cannot be held responsible or liable for abetting her causing
cruelty in the nature of abetting suicide.
22. The lady was in a distressed state of mind, no doubt about that.
Even the neighbour, i.e. PW-10 / Uma Devi had stated that
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whenever she met the deceased, she would complain about
how she doesn’t like living in a small town. Interestingly, it has
also been elicited in the cross-examination of PW-10 / Uma
Devi, who was the neighbour of the accused persons, that on
the date of incident, the accused Narender Singh and Leela
Singh went for a walk with her husband Hari Bhagat Singh.
This corroborates the accused persons’ version of the story and
shows their inability to cause any harm to the girl at the given
point of time.
23. The settled law is that a dying declaration is regarded with
utmost evidentiary value, because it is believed that a person
will not meet the maker with lies in his mouth. However, as a
matter of prudence, if there are some suspicious circumstances
related to a dying declaration, then in that case, the same can
be rejected. Now turning our attention to the facts on hand we
notice that there are two dying declarations on record, one
recorded 16th April, 2001 by PW-18/ Prabha Shankar Tripathi,
the Nayab Tehsilar and Executive Magistrate and the other one
recorded 17th April, 2001 by PW-22/KL Survanshi which
came to be marked as Ex.P-22 & Ex.P-30 respectively. In the
first dying declaration Ex.P-22, the victim says that her in-laws
set her ablaze due to insufficient dowry. The said declaration
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was recorded by PW-18/ Prabha Shankar Tripathi, the
Tehsildar. In the cross-examination, the Tehsildar has deposed
that there were about 4-5 persons who were there with the
deceased in the hospital, and one of them had told the deceased
to depose in a certain way at the time her Dying Declaration
being recorded. This casts a shadow of doubt on the veracity of
the dying declaration. In the second dying declaration, which
was recorded by PW-22/KL Suryavanshi, the deceased
changes her stance and stays that she poured the Kerosene
herself and set herself on fire and thereby committing suicide.
The variation in the two dying declarations in the manner she
died casts doubt on their veracity, but we find the second
declaration more believable than the first one because it
appears that the first one was recorded after the deceased was
tutored to give statement in a particular manner.
24. The law relating to dying declaration has been succinctly
1
summarised in the case of Khushal Rao v. State of Bombay ,
by this court by holding: -
“ 16. On a review of the relevant provisions of the Evidence
Act and of the decided cases in the different High Courts in
India and in this Court, we have come to the conclusion, in
1
1957 SCC OnLine SC 20
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 13 of 19
agreement with the opinion of the Full Bench of the Madras
High Court, aforesaid,
(1) that it cannot be laid down as an absolute rule of law
that a dying declaration cannot form the sole basis of
conviction unless it is corroborated;
(2) that each case must be determined on its own facts
keeping in view the circumstances in which the dying
declaration was made;
(3) that it cannot be laid down as a general proposition that
a dying declaration is a weaker kind of evidence than other
pieces of evidence;
(4) that a dying declaration stands on the same footing as
another piece of evidence and has to be judged in the light
of surrounding circumstances and with reference to the
principles governing the weighing of evidence;
(5) that a dying declaration which has been recorded by a
competent Magistrate in the proper manner, that is to say,
in the form of questions and answers, and, as far as
practicable, in the words of the maker of the declaration,
stands on a much higher footing than a dying declaration
which depends upon oral testimony which may suffer from
all the infirmities of human memory and human character,
and
(6) that in order to test the reliability of a dying declaration,
the court has to keep in view, the circumstances like the
opportunity of the dying man for observation, for example,
whether there was sufficient light if the crime was
committed at night; whether the capacity of the man to
remember the facts stated, had not been impaired at the time
he was making the statement, by circumstances beyond his
control; that the statement has been consistent throughout if
he had several opportunities of making a dying declaration
apart from the official record of it; and that the statement
had been made at the earliest opportunity and was not the
result of tutoring by interested parties.”
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 14 of 19
25. In the background of aforestated position of law, when the case
on hand is examined, it clearly shows that while conviction can
be solely based on a dying declaration, the court still has to
weigh the same in the light of the surrounding circumstances
and with reference to the principles governing the evidence
tendered by the prosecution. In the present matter, the
allegations made against the appellant - Narendra Singh are
generic in nature. The first dying declaration wherein it was
alleged that the in-laws burnt the deceased, falls foul with the
second dying declaration, wherein the deceased says that she
set herself on fire. It is a settled position of law that
circumstances cannot take the place of proof and in a criminal
trial, the guilt has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. The
golden principles for proof by way of circumstantial evidence,
also known as the panchsheel principles, were laid down in the
2
case of Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra ,
which reads as follows:
“ 153 . A close analysis of this decision would show that the
following conditions must be fulfilled before a case against
an accused can be said to be fully established:
(1) the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is
to be drawn should be fully established.
2
(1984) 4 SCC 116
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 15 of 19
(2) the facts so established should be consistent only with
the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say, they
should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except
that the accused is guilty,
(3) the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and
tendency,
(4) they should exclude every possible hypothesis except
the one to be proved, and
(5) there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to
leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent
with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all
human probability the act must have been done by the
accused.”
3
26. In State of U.P. v. Ashok Kumar Srivastava , it was observed
by this Court in para 9 that:
“ 9 . This Court has, time out of number, observed that while
appreciating circumstantial evidence the Court must adopt
a very cautious approach and should record a conviction
only if all the links in the chain are complete pointing to the
guilt of the accused and every hypothesis of innocence is
capable of being negatived on evidence. Great care must be
taken in evaluating circumstantial evidence and if the
evidence relied on is reasonably capable of two inferences,
the one in favour of the accused must be accepted. The
circumstance relied upon must be found to have been fully
established and the cumulative effect of all the facts so
established must be consistent only with the hypothesis of
guilt. But this is not to say that the prosecution must meet
any and every hypothesis put forward by the accused
however far-fetched and fanciful it might be. Nor does it
mean that prosecution evidence must be rejected on the
3
(1992) 2 SCC 86
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 16 of 19
slightest doubt because the law permits rejection if the
doubt is reasonable and not otherwise.”
(Emphasis supplied)
27. Thus, in a criminal trial, in case there are two inferences
possible, then the one favouring the accused must be followed.
Herein, no direct evidence was produced by the prosecution on
record to implicate the father-in-law for mental cruelty, or to
show that he was somehow directly involved in torturing the
deceased or raising the demand for dowry. It seems that the
father-in-law was roped in the present matter by an extension
of roping the husband of the deceased, as is the case in certain
S. 498A matters. This Court has time and again issued
directions in order to ensure that there is no misuse of this law,
which was purported by the legislature as a tool to ensure the
safety of women in their marital homes and not to take grudges
against all the members of the family even in the absence of
any role attributable to them.
28. It was noticed by this Court that the factum of dowry demand
does not find presence in any of the testimonies of the family
of the deceased. It appears that the same was added in their
examination in chief as an afterthought so that they could
strengthen their case against husband and his family members
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 17 of 19
which was standing on shaky legs due to insufficiency of
evidence. It appears to be a legal gimmick rather than an honest
contradiction caused due to lapse of time and erosion of the
memory, because a fact as important as demand of dowry that
was so traumatic so as to lead to a death of a young lady could
not have been left out of the statement under Section 161 before
the police at the first blush. Rather, had that been a case, the
family of the deceased would have been so eager as to visit
punishment upon the husband and the in-laws that they would
have narrated the entire ordeal to the police in order to avoid
any legal discrepancies later on. This does not seem to be the
case at hand for the simple reason that when questioned in the
cross-examination about the reason of this omission, all the
family members of the deceased categorically pinned the
blame on the police for the non-recording of the statement.
Further, not a single independent witness could depose
anything pertaining to the demand of dowry. In such a scenario
it becomes unsafe for the Court to rely on contradictory
statements of the interested witnesses to visit punishment upon
the husband or the in-laws. For this reason, we are of the
opinion that the demand of dowry was not proved.
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 18 of 19
29. In the light of the above analysis, the evidence is brought on
record would not be sufficient to establish the charge of guilt
under Section 498A of IPC against the Appellant - Narendra
Singh. Accordingly, Criminal Appeal No. 302 / 2014 filed by
Narendra Singh is allowed and his conviction u/s 498A IPC is
set aside. Further, Criminal Appeal Nos. 309 / 2014 and 307 /
2014 are hereby dismissed.
.……………………………., J.
[ARAVIND KUMAR]
.……………………………., J.
[N.V. ANJARIA]
New Delhi;
th
April 30 , 2026.
Criminal Appeal No. 302 of 2014 Page 19 of 19