Chabi Karmakar vs The State Of West Bengal

REPORTABLE 2024 INSC 665 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1556 OF 2013

CHABI KARMAKAR & ORS. .....Appellant(s)

Vs.

THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL .....Respondent(s)

O R D E R

1. The appellants have been convicted under Sections 498A, 304B

and 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The Trial

Court had convicted sister-in-law (appellant no.1), husband

(appellant no.2) and mother-in-law of the deceased and sentenced

them to suffer life imprisonment, 3 years R.I and 10 years R.I

for offences under Sections 304B, 498A and 306 of IPC

respectively, along with fine and other default stipulations.

Both the conviction and the sentence of the present appellants

have been upheld in appeal and the High Court has dismissed the

appeal. During the pendency of the appeal, one of the appellants

i.e. appellant no. 3 (Sova Rani Karmakar, the mother-in-law of

the deceased) had passed away and the case against her stands

abated.

2. The brief case of the prosecution is as follows: Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Nirmala Negi Date: 2024.09.07 14:06:06 IST

The deceased, Sonali Karmakar, and the appellant No. 2, Reason:

Samir Karmarkar were married in March 2003, and out of the

wedlock, there is a son who was born on 4.9.2004 (Now 20 years of

1 age). On 2.5.2006 the deceased committed suicide by hanging

herself in her matrimonial house. The deceased was alone at the

time of the incident and the appellant No. 2, the husband was not

even in the house at the time of the incident. The appellant no.

2 was informed and the deceased had been taken to the

Krishnanagar hospital where she was declared dead. An inquest

report was conducted at the hospital and a post-mortem was

conducted on 03.05.2006 by Dr. Ajit Kumar Biswas (PW-15). Post-

mortem report shows that there were ligature marks around the

neck of the deceased and the nature of the ligature marks shows

that it is a case of suicide. Apart from the ligature marks,

there were no other ante-mortem injuries on the body of the

deceased. The report also showed that the deceased was 22 years

of age at the time of her death.

An FIR was lodged by the brother of the deceased at

Krishnaganj Police Station, Nadia on 07.05.2006 i.e. after 5 days

of the incident, alleging that his sister i.e. the deceased was

being harassed by her in-laws on demand of dowry made prior to

her death. A case was registered under sections 498A/304B/34 and

a chargesheet was filed. Thereafter, Trial Court vide order and

judgment dated 5.6.2009 convicted the present appellants and

mother-in-law under Sections 498A, 304B, 306 read with Section 34

of the Indian Penal Code. The case of the prosecution is that

there was a harassment of deceased which was connected to the

demand of dowry, which led the deceased to commit suicide.

3. Prosecution witnesses PW-1, 3 and 16 have all deposed that

there was a demand of dowry about which they were informed when

2 the deceased had come to her maternal house soon before her

death. The learned counsel for the State would argue that there

is evidence in the form of PW-4 that appellant no. 2 was also

having an extramarital affair with another woman which led to

frequent discord between the deceased and appellant no. 2 and

this was another cause of her harassment.

The learned counsel for the appellants would, however, argue

that this cannot be construed as a demand for dowry and would not

come within the definition of dowry as defined under Section 2 of

the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 which reads as under:

“Definition of ‘dowry’ – In this Act, “dowry” means any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly –

(a) By one party to a marriage to the other party to the marriage; or

(b) By the parent of either party to a marriage or by any other person, to either party to the marriage or to any other person, At or before [or any time after the marriage] [in connection with the marriage of the said parties, but does not include] dowry or mahr in the case of persons to whom the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) applies.”

The point which is made by learned counsel for the

appellants would be that although a demand can be made either

before or “any time after the marriage”, it should be in

connection with the marriage of the said parties. The counsel for

the appellants further argued that the demand for dowry has not

been fully established by the prosecution hence the death as

occurred on 02.05.2006 cannot be termed as a dowry death.

4. We have heard arguments and counterarguments from both

3 parties and have gone through the material on record. From the

evidence which has been placed by the prosecution, there are

certain facts that have been proved beyond any doubt which are:

(i) That the deceased died within seven years of marriage;

(ii) The death was by suicide in her matrimonial house; and

(iii) There was harassment at the hands of her in-laws and particularly by the husband;

(iv) And that there was marital discord between husband and wife.

5. As far as appellant no.1 (sister-in-law of deceased) is

concerned, we are of the view that the prosecution has failed to

place any credible evidence for the involvement of appellant no.

1 i.e. the sister of appellant no. 2 and sister-in-law of the

deceased. Moreover, appellant no. 1 is a married woman and at

the relevant point of time, admittedly, she was residing with her

family at her matrimonial home. There is no specific evidence

that has come in the form of any of the prosecution witnesses

that may connect appellant no. 1 to the commission of the crime

and the trial Court as well as the appellate Court have not

considered this aspect as it should have been considered on the

weight of the evidence which was placed by the prosecution.

Now, the only question left to be determined is regarding the

guilt of appellant no.2 (husband).

6. After going through the evidence of PW-1, PW-3, PW-4 and P-

16 (who are the brother, father, mother and cousin of the

deceased respectively), it becomes clear that the deceased faced

cruelty and harassment at the hands of her husband (appellant

4 no.2) which compelled her to commit suicide. However, these

witnesses did not state that such cruelty and harassment was in

connection with the demand for dowry. With respect to the demand

for dowry, they have just made some general statements which are

not sufficient to convict the appellants under section 304B of

IPC.

7. Trial Court raised a presumption under section 113B of

Evidence Act to convict the appellants under section 304B of IPC.

The High Court did not go into the question of whether the trial

court was right in relying upon section 113B of the Evidence Act.

In Charan Singh alias Charanjit Singh vs. State of

Uttarakhand 2023 SCC OnLine SC 454, where there were allegations

against the husband that he was subjecting the deceased therein

on the demand of a motorcycle and some land, this Court in

relation to Section 113B of Evidence Act and section 304B of IPC,

had noted that:

“21…………………It is only certain oral averments regarding demand of motorcycle and land which is also much prior to the incident. The aforesaid evidence led by the prosecution does not fulfil the pre-requisites to invoke presumption under Section 304B IPC or Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act……

22.XXXXXXX

23. On a collective appreciation of the evidence led by the prosecution, we are of the considered view that the prerequisites to raise presumption under Section 304B and Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act having not being fulfilled, the conviction of the appellant cannot be justified. Mere death of the deceased being unnatural in the matrimonial home within seven years of marriage will not be sufficient to convict the accused under Section 304B and 498A of IPC.”

Similarly, in the case at hand, it has not been proved by the

5 prosecution that the deceased was subjected to cruelty soon

before her death in connection with the demand of dowry and hence

we are of the opinion that this is not a case of dowry death

under Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code. PW-1 and PW-3 had

only stated that deceased used to tell them about her torture.

PW-4 (mother of the deceased) did not speak about any demand of

dowry after marriage. Moreover, this witness had said that

appellant no.2 used to assault her deceased daughter as the

deceased had objections to the illicit relation of appellant no.2

with another woman. PW-16, who is the cousin of the deceased, had

deposed in court almost a year after the testimony of PW-1, 3 & 4

and his deposition regarding the physical assault of the deceased

in connection with the demand of dowry is also not believable.

Considering the aforesaid, in our view, the trial court erred in

raising a presumption under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence

Act, even though the demand for dowry was not established.

8. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the State of

West Bengal would rely on two judgments of this Court, seeking

appellants’ conviction under Section 304B of IPC, both of which

were decided by Three Judges’ Bench of this Court: Rajinder Singh

vs. State of Punjab (2015) 6 SCC 477 and State of Madhya Pradesh

v. Jogendra & Anr.(2022) 5 SCC 401.

The facts in Rajinder Singh (Supra) were entirely

different. In that case, the deceased had died due to consumption

of poison and there were specific allegations against in-laws in

the form of evidence from the deceased’s father, who had given

credible evidence that the in-laws were demanding money for the

6 construction of the house. There was also evidence of giving a

she-buffalo to pacify the in-laws. Father of the deceased therein

further deposed how the Sarpanch and Ex-Sarpanch of their village

went to the matrimonial home of the deceased for reconciliation

where the father of deceased had promised to give money after

harvest of crops.

Jogendra (Supra) was decided by taking into account the

peculiar facts of that case where the evidence of PW-1 therein

contained specific allegations of constant demand for dowry. It

was stated that deceased was asked to raise Rs.50,000 for the

construction of house. He further stated that there was even an

attempt by the ‘people of society’ to settle the matrimonial

discord between the parties.

In paragraph 9 of Rajinder Singh (Supra), this Court had

discussed the ingredients of Section 304B of IPC as follows:

“9. The ingredients of the offence under Section 304-B IPC have been stated and restated in many judgments. There are four such ingredients and they are said to be:

(a) death of a woman must have been caused by any burns or bodily injury or her death must have occurred otherwise than under normal circumstances;

(b) such death must have occurred within seven years of her marriage;

(c) soon before her death, she must have been subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any relative of her husband; and

(d) such cruelty or harassment must be in connection with the demand for dowry.”

The evidence placed before us, in the case at hand, is not

sufficient to prove the fourth ingredient i.e. cruelty or

harassment in connection with the demand for dowry, as laid down

by the abovementioned case.

9. All the same, having considered all the relevant aspects of

7 the matter, and the evidence of the prosecution, we are also of

the opinion that a case of abetment of suicide under Section 306

of IPC and cruelty under Section 498A of IPC is made out against

the appellant No. 2, although the offence under Section 304B is

not made out and consequently, we set aside the conviction of

appellant no.2 under Section 304B of IPC. With respect to the

offences under Section 306 and 498A, we convict the appellant No.

2 and sentence him to undergo three years of rigorous

imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 25000/- on each count. Both the

sentences shall run concurrently and in default of fine, he shall

undergo further imprisonment of 3 months. Further, we direct

that the fine payable shall be paid to the nearest relative of

the deceased within a period of 3 months from today. The

appellant no.2 shall surrender before the concerned Court within

four weeks from today and undergo the remaining sentence.

Also, we allow the appeal with respect to appellant no. 1

by acquitting her for all offences in present case. As she is

presently on bail, so she need not surrender.

The Appeal is disposed of accordingly.

Pending application(s), if any, shall stand(s) disposed of.

....................J .

(SUDHANSHU DHULIA)

....................J .

(J.B. PARDIWALA) New Delhi;

August 29, 2024

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