Wife Dies Within 10 Months Of Marriage Amid ₹80,000 And Motorcycle Demands: Patna HC Upholds Husband’s 10-Year Dowry-Death Sentence

The appellant’s wife died at her matrimonial home on 10 April 2021, less than a year after their marriage.

Her father alleged that the appellant and his family had demanded ₹80,000 and a motorcycle and subjected her to assault when the demands were not met.

The post-mortem recorded multiple injuries, including fractured ribs and a lacerated lung, and attributed death to haemorrhage and shock caused by a hard and blunt substance.

The trial court convicted the appellant under Sections 304B and 498A IPC and Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act; it imposed ten years’ rigorous imprisonment under Section 304B IPC, with further sentences for the other offences, to run concurrently.

The appellant appealed, contending, among other things, that the prosecution had not established cruelty soon before death and that the injuries resulted from falling bricks.

Section 304B IPC applies where a woman dies from burns, bodily injury, or otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of marriage, and it is shown that soon before her death she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or his relatives in connection with a dowry demand.

Once those foundational facts are established, Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 requires the court to presume that the accused caused the dowry death; the accused may rebut that presumption by establishing a probable defence.

The judgment also records the appellant’s convictions under Section 498A IPC and Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, but its substantive analysis principally addresses Section 304B IPC and the Section 113B presumption.

The Court found that the deceased’s death was unnatural, resulted from bodily injuries, and occurred within seven years of marriage.

It accepted the evidence of the informant, the deceased’s brother and uncle, and PW-9 as establishing persistent demands for money and a motorcycle, accompanied by assault, continuing until the incident.

The Court rejected the accidental-injury explanation: although bricks were reportedly near the body, the Investigating Officer did not report a fallen wall, and the appellant neither substantiated that account nor raised it in his Section 313 statement.

It therefore held that the evidence established dowry-related cruelty soon before death, bringing the Section 113B presumption into operation; the appellant had not rebutted it.

It dismissed the appeal and affirmed the impugned conviction and sentence.

The operative paragraph expressly refers to the convictions under Sections 304B and 498A IPC and sentences for those offences; although the judgment’s opening records a conviction and sentence under Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, the final paragraph does not separately restate that conviction or sentence.