Mr. R.N. Sharma, Mr. Salabh Bhardwaj, Mr. Rahul Sharma, Ms. Nivedita Pandas, Mr. Pranav v. THE STATE

Judgment

1. The appellants assail their conviction and sentence under Sections Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 1 of 35 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860,1 arising out of the death of Bharti, wife of appellant Vikas Kumar. Appellant Yogesh Kumar is Vikas’s elder brother (jeth) and appellant Swati @ Savita is Yogesh’s wife (jethani). Bharti died by suicide at her parental home within seven years of her marriage. The prosecution alleges that, in the period leading up to her death, she was subjected to cruelty and harassment for dowry by all three appellants, thereby attracting the offence of “dowry death” in law. The appellants, deny any demand for dowry, dowry-related cruelty or any form of cruelty and maintain that Bharti’s suicide was the result of other unfortunate circumstances unconnected with dowry, which, according to them, takes the case outside the ambit of Section 304B IPC.

2. Since both appeals arise from the same trial, challenge the same judgment and order on sentence, proceed on a common body of evidence and raise overlapping grounds, it is appropriate to decide them together by this common judgment. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

3. The complainant, Bharti’s father, alleged that between 28th November, 2004 and 13th June, 2005 all three appellants, acting in furtherance of their common intention, subjected Bharti to cruelty and harassment by making unlawful demands for dowry, thereby committing an offence under Section 498A read with Section 34 IPC. It is further alleged that the dowry articles, which had been entrusted to the accused at the time of marriage, were not returned despite demand by the complainant, thus attracting an offence under Section 406 read with Section 34 IPC. According to the prosecution, Bharti was harassed in her matrimonial home on account 1 “IPC” Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 2 of 35 of dowry, including during a visit by her parents in January 2005 and again on 10th June, 2005, when they accompanied her to the matrimonial house but the in-laws allegedly refused to keep her unless the demands were met. This conduct is said to have continued up to 13th June, 2005, when Vikas Kumar allegedly reiterated the demand over the telephone. Taken together, this pattern of harassment, it is asserted, constitutes dowry-related cruelty “soon before her death” and to have driven Bharti to commit suicide at her parental home on 14th June, 2005, thereby attracting the offence of “dowry death” punishable under Section 304B read with Section 34 IPC in addition to the other charges. Prosecution evidence

4. The prosecution examined 25 witnesses in support of its case. These can broadly be grouped into four sets: (i) medical and forensic witnesses, (ii) police and official witnesses, (iii) the family members of the deceased, and (iv) other public witnesses. The medical evidence consists of the post- mortem doctor (PW-9) and the subsequent opinion regarding the ligature material. Their testimony establishes that Bharti, aged about 22 years, died an unnatural death by hanging and rules out natural causes. The forensic handwriting expert (PW-25) opined that the suicide note Ex. P-2 was in Bharti’s hand. The police and official witnesses (PW-1, PW-4, PW-5, PW- 10 to PW-12, PW-14, PW-17, PW-19, PW-20, PW-23 and PW-24), including the then SDM Punjabi Bagh (PW-18), speak about the registration of the FIR, inquest and post-mortem proceedings, recovery and sealing of the suicide note, seizure of the chunni, diaries and alleged dowry articles, and the steps taken during investigation. Their evidence is essentially formal and is not in dispute, except to the limited extent highlighted in the Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 3 of 35 arguments.

5. The core of the prosecution case rests on the evidence of Bharti’s family: her father Ved Prakash (PW-2), grandfather Daya Ram (PW-3), mother Raj Dulari (PW-8), paternal aunt Leelawati (PW-21) and brother Vikas Vats (PW-22). Through them, the prosecution sought to establish the alleged dowry demands, the cruelty said to have been inflicted on Bharti, and the sequence of events culminating in her suicide on 14th June, 2005. The remaining public witnesses, including neighbours Sant Ram (PW-6) and Pandit Radhey Shyam (PW-7), are concerned principally with seizure of articles and the immediate aftermath of the incident.

6. After the prosecution evidence was closed, the appellants were examined under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.2 They denied all incriminating material put to them, repudiated the allegations of dowry demand and cruelty, and asserted that they had been falsely implicated. They maintained that Bharti’s death was a case of suicide

arising out of reasons unconnected with any alleged dowry demand.

7. On an appraisal of the oral and documentary evidence, the Trial Court, by judgment dated 20th March, 2018, held all three appellants guilty of offences under Sections 498A and 304B read with Section 34 IPC but acquitted them of the charge under Section 406 IPC. By a separate order dated 27th March, 2018, it imposed the corresponding sentences. APPELLANTS’ SUBMISSIONS

8. Mr R.N. Sharma, counsel for the appellants, assails the impugned judgment of conviction and the order on sentence on the following grounds:

8.1 The impugned judgment is contrary to the evidence on record and Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 4 of 35 settled criminal law principles. It suffers from serious factual and legal infirmities, and on a correct appreciation of the material, the appellants deserve acquittal.

8.2 The Trial Court ignored the presumption of innocence and the requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt, and convicted the appellants on conjecture rather than credible evidence.

8.3 Serious infirmities in the prosecution case, such as contradictions, material omissions, improvements, and alleged investigative manipulations, were overlooked, rendering the judgment unsustainable.

8.4 There is no reliable evidence that the appellants subjected the deceased to dowry-related harassment. The prosecution’s attempt to attribute cruelty is speculative. The Trial Court relied selectively on examination-in- chief and failed to properly consider the cross-examinations.

8.5 The alleged suicide note (Ex. P-2) contains only vague, omnibus allegations, without imputing any specific dowry demand or “soon before death” harassment to the appellants. If such generality was sufficient, the Trial Court was required to explain why similarly-placed family members named in the note were not convicted. Early statements of PW-2 and PW-8 (including the SDM statements and Ex. PW-11/X, reply to the PCR officials) contain no dowry allegations; the detailed version first appears in their 161 Cr.P.C. statements, indicating improvement and tutoring.

8.6 PW-2, PW-3, PW-8, PW-21 and PW-22 admitted in cross- examination that no demand for cash or vehicle was made prior to or at the time of marriage. In this background, the prosecution’s claim that the appellants suddenly made aggressive demands after marriage is inherently 2 “Cr.P.C.” Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 5 of 35 improbable.

8.7 The Trial Court ignored the admitted alternative cause for suicide. PW-2, PW-3 and PW-8 accepted that the deceased was disturbed by the husband’s alleged affair and the non-consummation of marriage. Ex. P-2 itself reflects this distress; the passing reference to a “bigger car” is frustration, not a sustained dowry demand “soon before” death.

8.8 All material witnesses were confronted with their earlier statements, where the present detailed dowry narrative does not appear. The alleged demands on 17th May, 2005 and 13th June, 2005, are contradicted by PW-22, who categorically denied any dowry demand in his presence. No call detail records were produced to support the alleged telephonic conversation on 13th June, 2005. These aspects were ignored by the Trial Court.

8.9 No independent neighbour from the matrimonial home was examined. Statement of PW-21 statement was recorded after nearly two months without explanation. These factors erode the prosecution’s credibility.

8.10 PW-2 Ved Prakash, a Delhi Police Head Constable, lodged no contemporaneous complaint despite alleging sustained dowry harassment, undermining the prosecution story and supporting the alternative narrative of marital discord due to the husband’s alleged affair and non-consummation. His claim of agreeing to pay ₹3-4 lakhs from “land compensation” is also belied by PW-3’s admission that he owned no land, rendering the alleged demand inherently doubtful.

8.11 The cross-examination of PW-2 Ved Prakash substantially weakens the prosecution case. PW-2 admitted, inter alia, that no dowry articles including any vehicle or cash were ever demanded from him. He had told the SDM there was no demand of dowry prior to marriage and he came to Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 6 of 35 know immediately after the marriage about the husband’s alleged love affair. He further stated that he never personally enquired from the accused whether they had actually made any dowry demand through his daughter. He also admitted that he could not say whether the marriage had even been consummated. He conceded that several specific allegations now made against individual in-laws do not figure in his earlier statement Ex. PW-2/A or his police statement. He further admitted that during the month-long stay of the deceased at her parental home no relative or mediator was approached and no complaint was lodged regarding dowry demands. These admissions, omissions, contradictions and improvements elicited in cross-examination have been ignored by the Trial Court.

8.12 PW-3 Daya Ram admitted that there was no pre-marriage demand for any vehicle or cash, and that the deceased became depressed after learning of Vikas’s alleged affairs. PW-8 Raj Dulari stated that no enquiry was made from her by the SDM or police on the day of the incident and that whatever was given at the wedding was voluntary. She also accepted, when shown the diary entries (Ex. PW-2/DA to DE), that the deceased had called her marriage “only a label”. These admissions, along with the absence of any earlier dowry allegation, support the defence case that the deceased’s distress arose from the husband’s alleged affair and the non-consummation of the marriage, not dowry harassment.

8.13 The accounts of PW-2, PW-3, PW-8 and PW-21 about a visit to the matrimonial home on 10th June, 2005, are mutually inconsistent and do not appear in their earliest statements, suggesting that this episode was later introduced to satisfy the “soon before death” requirement of Section 304B IPC. PW-21 also stated that she questioned Jayawanti about Vikas’s alleged Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 7 of 35 affairs, and Jayawanti admitted she had advised him to be loyal but he did not listen. This supports the alternative narrative that the real strain in the marriage stemmed from the husband’s alleged extra-marital affairs, later projected as a dowry dispute.

8.14. PW-22, the deceased’s brother, admitted that no accused ever made a dowry demand in his presence and that no such demand was made when Vikas left the deceased at their home. This directly contradicts PW-2 and PW-8 and weakens the prosecution’s case.

8.15. As regards Yogesh and Swati, there are no clear, specific or proximate allegations of any particular act of dowry demand or dowry‑related cruelty referable to either of them, the material being confined to omnibus references to “in‑laws” without particulars of date, place, amount or role. Their alleged participation in any demand for a car or cash appears for the first time in later statements and in examination‑in‑chief, and is absent from the earliest versions, amounting to material improvements and over‑implication of relatives merely due to their status as jeth and jethani. There is no evidence that Yogesh and Swati shared any common intention with Vikas or acted in concert so as to attract Section 34 IPC, nor is there any independent material establishing “cruelty” within the meaning of Section 498A IPC against them.

8.16 Taken together, these admissions, omissions, contradictions and improvements, show that the prosecution has failed to prove a consistent or credible case of dowry demand or dowry-related cruelty, let alone “soon before death”. The Trial Court erred in relying only on examination-in-chief while ignoring decisive cross-examination.

8.17 Accordingly, the ingredients of Sections 498A, 406 and 304B IPC are Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 8 of 35 not established against any appellant and the conviction and sentence cannot be sustained. STATE’S SUBMISSIONS

9. On the other hand, Mr. Ajay Vikram Singh, APP for the State, supports the conviction and sentence and submits as follows:

9.1 All ingredients of Section 304B IPC stand satisfied: the deceased committed suicide within seven years of marriage; her family consistently spoke of demands for a Santro/bigger car and cash; and her suicide note and diary reflect financial expectations and marital discord. These foundational facts trigger the presumption under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act,3 which the appellants have not rebutted.

9.2 The defence has attempted to project the husband’s alleged love affair and non-consummation of marriage as an “alternative” and exclusive cause for the suicide. This is a false dichotomy. Human conduct is complex and more than one factor can operate together. The fact that the deceased was distressed about her husband’s conduct does not exclude, and is in fact compatible with, her simultaneous harassment for dowry. Ex. P-2 itself refers to dowry-related demands and the desire for a bigger car, which cannot be explained away as a mere “frustrated flourish” when read with the oral evidence of her family members.

9.3 The absence of full detail in the earliest SDM or PCR statements is natural for grieving parents. What matters is the overall consistency on the core allegations, dissatisfaction with dowry, demand for a better car and money, and related taunts, which clearly emerges from the cumulative evidence adduced during trial. Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 9 of 35

9.4 The so-called “improvements” in the testimonies of PW-2, PW-3, PW-8, PW-21 and PW-22 are minor matters of dates, amounts or names, routine embellishments in criminal trials, and do not undermine the core, consistent narrative of dowry-related harassment, which is reinforced by the suicide note and the deceased’s diary.

9.5 The defence reads the testimony of PW-2 selectively. While he agreed there was no pre-marriage demand, he clearly spoke of post-marriage dissatisfaction, demands and taunts. Not confronting the accused personally or filing a complaint, immediately despite being in the police, does not negate what his daughter disclosed. In many such cases, parents hesitate to report, hoping the marriage will be salvaged.

9.6 Reliance on the admissions of PW-22 is misplaced. The prosecution never claimed that demands were made in the brother’s presence. The case rests on what the deceased confided to her parents and elders. Lack of corroboration from every family member does not defeat credible, consistent testimonies supported by the deceased’s own writings.

9.7 The criticism regarding non-examination of neighbours and the timing of PW-21’s statement is also not fatal to the prosecution ‘s case. Dowry- related cruelty is often domestic, subtle, and confined within the family. Expecting neighbours to depose about intimate dowry disputes is unrealistic. PW-21’s statement, even if recorded later, aligns with the prosecution narrative and reinforces that the matrimonial relationship was strained; the delay by itself does not demolish the case.

9.8 The absence of call detail records for the alleged conversation of 13th June, 2005, is a minor investigative lapse, insufficient to discredit consistent 3 “the Evidence Act” Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 10 of 35 oral testimony, particularly for an incident from 2005, when call-record retention was not as robust.

9.9 The defence has offered no plausible alternative that breaks the link between dowry harassment and the suicide. The cumulative evidence, unnatural death within seven years, the suicide note and diary, and the statements of the parents and relatives, establishes dowry-related cruelty “soon before” the death. The Trial Court was therefore justified in invoking Section 113B of the Evidence Act, and convicting the appellants under Sections 304B and 498A IPC. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS The statutory scheme

10. These appeals turn primarily on the charge under Section 304B of the IPC. This provision defines “dowry death” and, by a legal fiction, treats the husband or his relative as having caused the death of a woman where it is shown that her death occurred otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of marriage, and that, soon before her death, she had been subjected to cruelty or harassment for, or in connection with, a demand for dowry.

11. Section 304B IPC has two distinct consequences once its ingredients are established. First, it confers a specific legal character on the death by designating it as a “dowry death”. Secondly, it stipulates that the husband or relative “shall be deemed to have caused her death”. This deeming clause is material. The prosecution is not required to prove, in the ordinary way, the precise homicidal act or mechanism of causation. If the statutory conditions are met, the law itself attributes causation to the husband or relative. Section 304B therefore operates through a legal fiction on the issue of causation at Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 11 of 35 the level of the substantive offence.

12. Section 113B of the Evidence Act complements this framework by providing that, once it is established that soon before her death the woman was subjected to such dowry-related cruelty or harassment, the court shall presume that “such person” has caused the dowry death.

13. This framework does not relieve the prosecution of its initial burden. It must first establish, as foundational facts, that (i) the woman died an unnatural or suspicious death; (ii) such death occurred within seven years of marriage; and (iii) she was subjected, soon before her death, to cruelty or harassment for, or in connection with, a demand for dowry by the husband or his relatives. Only when these elements are proved does the law treat the death as a “dowry death” under Section 304B and require the presumption under Section 113B to be drawn, with the evidentiary burden then shifting to the accused to rebut the same.

14. The regime is stringent, but not absolute. The presumption is rebuttable.

15. Suicide is well within the expression “otherwise than under normal circumstances” in Section 304B IPC. Where a married woman takes her own life in such a setting, the law recognises that, although the immediate physical act is hers, legal responsibility for the death may nonetheless lie with those whose continuous and proximate dowry-related cruelty drove her to that point. Section 304B, read with Section 113B of the Evidence Act, embodies this object by classifying such deaths as “dowry deaths” when the statutory conditions are met. The undisputed facts

16. Bharti was married to appellant Vikas Kumar on 28th November, Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 12 of 35

2004. Few months later, on 14th June, 2005, well within seven years of the marriage, she died by suicide at her parental home. The medical and investigative evidence attributes her death to hanging and, therefore, to a cause “otherwise than under normal circumstances”. The relationship between the parties is not in dispute. Vikas is the husband and the other appellants are her in-laws. On this material, both the statutory time frame and the requirement under Section 304B that the death occured otherwise than under normal circumstances, stand satisfied. The core controversy

17. The real controversy lies in the more exacting requirement of Section 304B IPC: whether the prosecution has proved that Bharti was subjected to cruelty or harassment “soon before her death” for, or in connection with, any demand for dowry, and, if so, by which of the appellants. The State relies on the depositions of her parents and relatives, the suicide note Ex. P-2 and the diary writings to assert that there was dissatisfaction with the dowry and persistent demands for a better car and money. The defence, in contrast, stresses the limited nature of the dowry allegations in the earliest statements, the omissions and admissions emerging in cross-examination, and the material suggesting that Bharti’s primary distress stemmed from the husband’s alleged love affair and the non-consummation of the marriage, rather than from dowry demands.

18. In this backdrop, the first task, in terms of Section 304B IPC read with Section 113B of the Evidence Act, is to see whether, in reasonable proximity to her death, Bharti was subjected to cruelty or harassment in relation to a demand for dowry. That scrutiny must be undertaken separately in relation to the husband and to the other in-laws. Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 13 of 35 The documentary evidence: suicide note and diary writings

19. The prosecution places reliance on the suicide note Ex. P-2 and certain diary pages (Ex. PW-2/DA to Ex. PW-2/DE) which are in Bharti’s handwriting. Their authorship is not in serious dispute. PW-25, the FSL expert, compared the questioned writing on Ex. P-2 with multiple standard writings of Bharti (A-1 to A-48) and opined that they were written by the same hand. PW-2 and PW-8, who were familiar with Bharti’s handwriting, also identified it as hers. The defence objection that some of the standard writings supplied to the FSL were photocopies goes to the weight of the opinion, not to the admissibility of the document itself. There is no tenable basis to doubt that Ex. P-2 and the diary entries are Bharti’s own writings and, as such, relevant under Section 32 of the Evidence Act as contemporaneous expressions of her state of mind.4

20. Ex. P-2, read with the diary pages, discloses that Bharti was deeply unhappy in her matrimonial life. In the suicide note, she records that the in- laws were dissatisfied with the dowry given, that there was an expectation of a “bigger” or better car than the Maruti 800 provided at the time of marriage, and that she was harassed in that context. At the same time, her writings repeatedly describe the marriage as being “only a label” and speak of Vikas’s emotional attachment to another woman and the resulting emptiness and non-consummation of the relationship.

21. These writings lend independent support to the prosecution case on two important points. First, they corroborate that Bharti herself associated her suffering not only with Vikas’s alleged affair and the hollow state of the 4 Rekha Rani v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6853; Sharad Birdhi Chand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 14 of 35 marriage, but also with dissatisfaction over the Maruti 800 and expectations of a better car and money. Secondly, they show that these concerns were alive in her mind close to the time of the suicide, and were not a later reconstruction by family members. What they do not do, standing alone, is to set out a dated, self-contained episode of dowry demand or cruelty in the precise temporal window “soon before her death”. They speak to the atmosphere and to Bharti’s perception of continuing pressure, rather than to a particular conversation or incident tied to a specific date.

22. This limitation does not make the writings irrelevant for Section 304B; it simply defines their role. Letters and suicide notes of this nature can furnish important corroborative evidence of dowry-linked harassment and of the deceased’s mental state, but they must still be assessed alongside the oral depositions to determine whether the statutory requirement of “soon before her death” is met as against each accused.

23. The next inquiry, therefore, is whether, when these writings are read together with the oral evidence of PW-2, PW-3, PW-8, PW-21 and PW-22, the prosecution has discharged its threshold burden of proving, in terms of Section 304B and Section 113B of the Evidence Act, that (i) Vikas, and (ii) the other in-laws, subjected Bharti “soon before her death” to cruelty or harassment for, or in connection with, a demand for dowry. It is to that evidentiary re-appraisal that the Court now turns. Re-appraisal of oral evidence and standard of proof

24. The presumption in Section 113B is attracted against “such person” who is shown, on evidence, to have subjected the woman to dowry-related Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AKANSHA SINGH Signing Date:16.12.2025 18:36:41 CRL.A.382/2018 & CRL.A. 413/2018 Page 15 of 35 cruelty in reasonable temporal proximity to her death.5 The ordinary rules in Sections 101 to 103 of the Evidence Act continue to govern the principle of burden of proof. The prosecution must first establish the foundational facts: that the woman died otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of marriage, and that, “soon before her death”, she was subjected to cruelty or harassment for, or in connection with, a demand for dowry. Only once these facts are proved does the presumption in Section 113B arise. Even then, the prosecution must still meet the criminal standard of proof “beyond reasonable doubt” under Section 3 of the Evidence Act, while any rebuttal by the accused is tested on a preponderance of probabilities. The presumption cannot be permitted to substitute or dilute the initial requirement of proof; it rests on facts already established and does not create them.

25. It is equally well recognised that in dowry-death prosecutions there is often a tendency to implicate, along with the husband, all available family members.6 Appellate courts have repeatedly cautioned that, while the social evil is grave, the criminal law requires scrutiny and proof beyond reasonable doubt, especially where the presumption under Section 113B is sought to be invoked against parents-in-law, siblings and other relatives. It is against this backdrop that the testimonies of the material witnesses shall now be examined, first in relation to Vikas, and then in relation to Yogesh and Swati. Appellant Vikas Kumar (husband) PW-2 Ved Prakash (father)