Full Judgment Text
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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1623 OF 2008
RAJA MISHRA ..... APPELLANTS
VERSUS
STATE OF BIHAR TR. OFFICER IN CHARGE ..... RESPONDENT
O R D E R
1. The appellant, and his son and co-accused, were
sentenced to ten years rigorous imprisonment under
Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code, three years
rigorous imprisonment under Section 498A and 201 of the
Indian Penal Code and two years rigorous imprisonment
under Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act; all the
sentences to run concurrently.
2. The appellant is the father-in-law of the
deceased. The trial court as well as the High Court
have concurrently held on the basis of the evidence of
P.W. 4 Ramadhar Tiwari, the father of the deceased, that
a case under the aforesaid provisions was made out and
that it was on account of the harassment meted out to
the deceased in relation to dowry that she had met an
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unnatural death. The evidence reveals that the
appellant and his son i.e. the husband of the deceased
had on several occasions demanded a motor cycle and in
lieu thereof Rs. 17,000/- from the complainant and his
family and that the last demand had been made twenty
days prior to the incident which happened sometime on
th
the 17 September, 1989. It appears that the police was
not informed about the death and the body was cremated
and the remains thrown into the river without informing
the family of the deceased. As a result of the
cumulative effect of the evidence, the aforesaid order
was recorded.
3. Mr. Lakshmi Raman Singh, the learned counsel for
the appellant has put forth various submissions and has
pointed out that the prosecution case rested almost
exclusively on the evidence of P.W. 4, R.D. Tiwari as
the brothers of the deceased P.Ws' Sanjay Tiwari and
Pramod Tiwari were virtually infants on the date when
the incident had happened and were not aware as to the
plight of their sister. He has further pleaded that
P.W. 3 and P.W. 5, the two independent witnesses, had
not supported the prosecution and the story, therefore,
rested on the evidence of one interested witness.
4. The learned State Counsel has, however, supported
the judgment of the courts below and has pointed out
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that the special le18/11/2010ave petition filed by the
husband of the deceased, Prakash Mishra, had been
dismissed while granting leave in the present matter and
that the allegations against the appellant were similar
to the one's against his son.
5. We have considered the arguments advanced by the
learned counsel. It is true, as contended by the
learned counsel, that the case rests on P.W.4 alone.
However, in the light of the fact that the incident
happened within seven years of the marriage and there
had been demands for dowry soon before the death of the
deceased, a presumption under Section 113B of the
Evidence Act has also to be raised against the
appellant. The evidence of P.W. 4 clearly reveals that
demands were made from him and his family and he had
repeatedly refused to satisfy the demands stating that
he was a person with a limited income and a large
family to support. Notwithstanding these pleadings,
however, both the accused continued to harass the
deceased which led to her death. Faced with this
situation, the learned counsel has pointed out that the
normal period of sentence in a case under Section 304B
was seven years and only in extraordinary circumstances
a higher sentence could be awarded. The learned counsel
has also pointed out that the appellant was more than 80
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years of age and completely immobilised as he was blind
and could not discharge his daily chores without
assistance and was, thus, a burden on the jail
administration as well. He pleads on this ground that
the sentence awarded to him under Section 304B of the
IPC be reduced from ten to seven years. We accept this
submission. We, accordingly, confirm the conviction of
the appellant, but reduce the sentence from 10 years to
seven years rigorous imprisonment for the offence under
Section 304B of the IPC.
6. With the above modification in the sentence, the
appeal is dismissed.
........................J
[HARJIT SINGH BEDI]
.........................J
[CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD]
NEW DELHI
NOVEMBER 18, 2010.