Mst. Premwati vs State of Madhya Pradesh

R.C. Lahoti, J.—The accused/petitioner is one of the two charged with offences u/s 304B and 306 I.P.C. The two accused are respectively mother-in-law and the husband of the unfortunate bride Smt. Suneeta, who has died of poisoning within two years of the date of her marriage.

The sole contention raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the charges u/s 304B and 306 I.P.C. are contradictory with each other; the two cannot be tried at a time; and that a charge u/s 304B, I.P.C. cannot be framed when the allegation is that the victim had committed suicide. In short, it is submitted that charge u/s 306 I.P.C. having been framed, the charge u/s 304B, I.P.C. was prima facie misconceived and hence is liable to be quashed.

The prosecution alleges and there is material available in the challan papers pointing out to the fact that the bride was subjected to continued ill-treatment amounting to cruelty and harassment in connection with demand for dowry and that she died an unnatural death, the cause being poisoning. The charge u/s 306 of the Indian Penal Code has been rightly framed.

Section 304B was introduced in the Penal Code by Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1986. The opening clause of subsection (1) of section 304B reads as under.

"Where the death of a woman is caused by any burns or bodily injury or occurs otherwise than under normal circumstances.........."

A bare reading of Section indicates that its applicability would be attracted not only when the death is ''caused'' by some one, but also when the death "occurs" unnaturally. If courrence of death is preceded by cruelty or harassment by in-laws for or in connection with dowry demand and if the connection between the two can be established, mere occurrence of death is enough though death may not have been "caused" by the in-laws. This interpretation has at least two internally built-in clues in the language of Section 304B. If at all applicability would have been intended to be attracted on death being caused by some one else than the victim, then there was no necessity of using the word ''occurs'' in context with death other than under normal circumstances. If at all the framers of the law would have intended the liability to be fixed on the person actually causing the death, there would have been no necessity of rising the language "and such husband or relatives shall be deemed to have caused her death" at the end of Sub-section (1) of Section 304B, I.P.C. It suggests that the framers intend and contemplate the liability 6f occurrence of death being fastened on the in-laws, though they did not in fact cause the death, by creating a fiction. Creating such Circumstances as compel a person to choose the death as the only way of getting out of misery would also attract the applicability of Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code.

A Division Bench decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Public Prosecutor v. Tota Basava Punniaiah 1989 Cri LJ 2330 supports the above said view.

At the stage of framing a charge, this Court would not interfere if there is material available for presuming that the accused has committed an offence of which he is charged with.

The revision is held to be without any merit. It is accordingly dismissed.