| accused were charged with offences under sections 498a and 304b of the ipc. the fir in the present case was lodged the father of the deceased. according to this witness on 23rd january2002the marriage of his daughter was solemnised with accused pathan hussain basha and he had accepted to give rs 25000 in marriage. he had given only rs 15000 and had agreed to pay rs 10000 after four months. this witness has further specifically stated that the said accused treated his daughter in a proper manner for about two months. in the marriage he had also given a gold chain a double bed an iron safe and other items. the accused asked for rs 1000 with a ring for the deceased. the witness could pay only rs 500 upon which the accused refused to take the deceased to the matrimonial home and went away. lw 7 confirmed that rs 15000 was given at the time of marriage and rs 10000 was to be given within some time which the father of the deceased failed to provide. according to him the accused persons used to harass the deceased primarily for non payment of the amount of dowry as a result of which she was forced to commit suicide. the dowry demands were being raised by the accused persons persistently from the family of the deceased and for that they even harassed the deceased by beating and abusing her. she had informed her parents of the ill treatment and the cruelty inflicted on her for non giving of dowry. it was appropriate for the court to examine as to what are the ingredients of an offence punishable under section 304b of the ipc. in the case of biswajit halder alias babu halder and others v state of w b 2008 1 scc 202 2007 indlaw sc 304the court stated the basic ingredients to attract the provisions of section 304 b are 1 the death of a woman should be caused by burns or fatal injury or otherwise than under normal circumstances 2 such death should have occurred within seven years of her marriage 3 she must have been subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any relative of her husband and 4 such cruelty or harassment should be for or in connection with demand for dowry. for the purpose of section 113 b of the evidence act dowry death shall have the same meaning as in section 304 b of indian penal code. if section 304 b ipc is read together with section 113 b of the evidence act a comprehensive picture emerges that if a married woman dies in unnatural circumstances at her matrimonial home within 7 years from her marriage and there are allegations of cruelty or harassment upon such married woman for or in connection with demand of dowry by the husband or relatives of the husband the case would squarely come under dowry death and there shall be a presumption against the husband and the relatives. where the husband had demanded a specific sum from his father in law and upon not being given harassed and tortured the wife and after some days she died such cases would clearly fall within the definition of dowry under the act s 4 of the act is the penal section and demanding a dowryas defined under s 2 of the act is punishable under this section. as already noticed the court need not deliberate on this aspect as the accused before the court has neither been charged nor punished for that offence. the court examined the provisions of s 2 of the act in a very limited sphere to deal with the contentions raised in regard to the applicability of the provisions of section 304 b of the code. the court can not ignore one of the cardinal principles of criminal jurisprudence that a suspect in the indian law is entitled to the protection of art 20 of the constitution of india as well as has a presumption of innocence in his favour. in other words the rule of law requires a person to be innocent till proved guilty. the concept of deeming fiction is hardly applicable to the criminal jurisprudence. in contradistinction to this aspect the legislature has applied the concept of deeming fiction to the provisions of section 304 b. where other ingredients of section 304 b are satisfied in that event the husband or all relatives shall be deemed to have caused her death. in other words the offence shall be deemed to have been committed by fiction of law. once the prosecution proves its case with regard to the basic ingredients of section 304 b the court will presume by deemed fiction of law that the husband or the relatives complained of has caused her death. such a presumption can be drawn by the court keeping in view the evidence produced by the prosecution in support of the substantive charge under section 304 b of the code. the ingredients of section 304b read with section 498a ipc are completely satisfied in the present case. the accused did not care to explain as to how the death of his wife occurred. denial can not be treated to be the discharge of onus. onus has to be discharged by leading proper and cogent evidence. it was expected of the accused to explain as to how and why his wife died as well as his conduct immediately prior and subsequent to the death of the deceased. maintaining silence can not be equated to discharge of onus by the accused. in the present case the prosecution by reliable and cogent evidence has established the guilt of the accused. there being no rebuttal thereto there is no occasion to interfere in the judgments of the courts under appeal. the offences having been proved against the accused and keeping in view the attendant circumstances the court was of the considered view that ends of justice would be met if the punishment awarded to the appellants is reduced. |