New Delhi:

Delhi’s Dwarka Court recently acquitted a man of charges related to dowry death, citing benefits of the doubt. There is a long distance between “may be true” and “must be true”, the court said in the judgement.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Sharad Gupta acquitted the accused, Satender Gautam, of offences under Section 498A IPC (cruelty for dowry) and Section 304B IPC (dowry death). The court concluded that the prosecution failed to prove its case against accused Satender Gautam by leading convincing or cogent evidence.

“Prosecution case may be true but criminal jurisprudence says that prosecution case must be true. There is a long distance between “may be true” and “must be true,” the court said.

“It is a cardinal principle of criminal jurisprudence that an accused is presumed to be innocent. The burden lies on the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution is under a legal obligation to prove each and every ingredient of an offence beyond any doubt, unless otherwise so provided by any statute. This general burden never shifts, it always rests on the prosecution,” ASJ Gupta said in the judgement passed on July 29.

The court held that the prosecution has not been able to bring on record any material to show that the accused had instigated the victim to die by suicide by any instigation or active act or omission.

The prosecution’s version is that there was a quarrel between the victim and the accused one day before the death of the victim.

The court said that fights between husband and wife are a normal part of domestic wear and tear and are a part of everyday life. It could not be said that the accused by quarrelling with the victim had intended to abet the suicide of Poonam Sharma.

“This is especially more so as there is nothing on record except the testimony of the deceased’s friend regarding the said fight and even she in her examination in chief stated that she thought it to be a normal quarrel between husband and wife. Hence even the offence under Section 306 is not made out in the facts of the present case,” the court said.

Gautam was charged in the case after an FIR was filed against him at Najafgarh police station in 2011. The FIR was filed following a complaint by Kamlesh Devi, who alleged that her daughter had committed suicide due to harassment and dowry demands by Gautam.

Advocate Pujya Kumar Singh argued that the allegations levelled against the accused are not true and he is falsely implicated in this case.

The accused stated that after the death of his wife, he came to know that her parents and other family members used to harass her over phone calls for inter-caste marriage between her and the accused.

The accused also stated that he had been falsely implicated since Poonam’s family was unhappy with his marriage with her.

Poonam Sharma had died by suicide on November 26, 2011. She had married Gautam in 2009 in Khurja, UP, in a love marriage. They were residing in Najafgarh at the time of her death.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bhopal:

A 23-year-old pregnant woman was murdered, her hands and legs chopped off and the mutilated body set on fire in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district yesterday. Reena Tanwar’s family has alleged that her husband Mithun and in-laws had been torturing her for dowry.

The incident took place at Tandi Khurd village in Kalipeeth police station area. Reena’s family has said a villager informed them yesterday that she had been murdered. When her father Ramprasad Tanwar reached Tandi Khurd with cops, they found that her in-laws had fled, leaving behind her burning pyre.

The family extinguished the flames and retrieved her half-burnt body that was then wrapped in cloth and sent for autopsy.

Reena Tanwar was married to Mithun Tanwar five years back. She has a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and was four months pregnant with her second child.

“Her in-laws had been demanding money and torturing my daughter,” alleged Ramprasad Tanwar.

Kalipeeth police station in-charge Rajneesh Sirothia said a case had been registered and investigation is underway. “Further action will be taken according to the facts that emerge during the investigation,” he said. Mithun Tanwar and his family members are now on the run.

Reena Tanwar’s family has demanded strict action against her in-laws. “We used to send money to resolve disputes. This time they went too far,” said Vishnu Tanwar, a relative. “We got a call from someone in the village. He said she was killed and was being burnt. When we arrived, the pyre was burning.”