NDLI: State of U.p. Vs. Ashok Kumar Srivastava

Content Provider	Supreme Court of India
e-ISSN	30484839
Language	English
Access Restriction	NDLI
Subject Keyword	Dowry Death Murder Section 302
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Law Judgement
Jurisdiction	India
Act(s) Referred	Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (1 of 1872) Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860)
Case Type	Appeal
Court	Supreme Court of India
Disposal Nature	Appeal Allowed
Headnote	Indian Penal Code, 1860: Sections 302 and 34 (Occurrence prior to insertion of Section 304-B ). Dowry death-Accused-Husband, his father and sister-Conviction by Trial Court-Re-evaluation and Re-appreciation of evidence by the High Court-Reversal of conviction order and acquittal of accused by High Court-Held High Court's order resulted in miscarriage of justice and is liable to be set aside. Constitution of India, 1950 : Article 13 scope of Murder-Conviction by Trial Court-On appeal acquittal by High Court--Appeal against acquittal order-lower of Supreme Court to appreciate evidence and interfere with acquittal order-Held Supreme Court can interfere with acquittal order if High Court's order has resulted in miscarriage of justice. Indian Evidence Act, 1872 : Section 3. Circumstantial evidence-Appreciation and evaluation of-Court must adopt a cautious approach-Conviction should be recorded only if all the links in the chain of evidence fully establish the hypothesis of guilt of the accused-But prosecution is not bound to meet any and every hypothesis put forward by accused however far{etched and fanciful it might be. Respondent A, was married to M, daughter of PW 2, at Banaras on 13th May, 1973. Subsequent to their marriage A, who was serving as Assistant Engineer, was transferred to Lucknow where he hired a two room first floor apartment for his residence. The ground floor of the house was occupied by the sons of the landlord, PWs 1 and 4. It was alleged that A, his father and sister were not satisfied with the sufficiency of the· dowry and therefore all the three were taunting, tormenting and torturing M. During one of their visits to Banaras the question of dowry was once again raised when A's father and sister misbehaved with M and her father and stated that they won't allow M to live with A unless 'r dowry was made good. When there was a heated argument, A returned to Lucknow without M. M entreated her father-in-law to permit her to join A at Lucknow but the latter refused saying that she will have to rot at Banaras alone unless the dowry amount was made good. Ignoring her father-in-law's refusal M went to Lucknow to join her husband. On B coming to know that M had gone to Lucknow A's father and sister followed her to Lucknow and all the three quarrelled and beat M. On that very night they sprinkled kerosene on M and set her ablaze. Thereafter, all the three accused came out of the room shouting 'firefire'. On hearing the shouts PWs 1 and 4 came out of their house and ·,I saw that while M was in flames all the three accused were standing in the ) verandah talking to each other and were unconcerned about her plight. None of accused made any effort to extinguish the flames or to rescue her. PW 1 called the fire brigade and PW 3, a fireman, took M to the hospital where she was declared dead. On coming to know of the incident, PW 2, M's father lodged the FIR and all the three accused were D prosecuted for murder. Relying upon the evidence of PWs 1, 3 and 4 and other circumstances of the case the Trial Court came to the conclusion that the charge against all the three accused was made out by prosecution beyond ... reasonable doubt. Accordingly the Trial Court convicted them under E sections 302134 and sentenced each of them to imprisonment for life. The Trial Court also rejected the theory of accidental death of M. The accused preferred an appeal before the High Court which on re-evaluation and re-appreciation of the evidence agreed with the Trial Court that the presence of PWs 1 and 4 on the scene of occurrence was F probable and natural but suspected the trustworthiness of their evidence. Accordingly, it allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction -order by holding that the evidence did not disclose the involvement of the ....(accused and that in all probability the deceased M committed suicide. The state preferred an appeal before this Court challenging the High Court's decision.
Judge	Honble Mr. Justice A.M. Ahmadi
Neutral Citation	1992 INSC 6
Petitioner	State Of U.p.
Respondent	Ashok Kumar Srivastava
SCR	[1992] 1 S.C.R. 37
Judgement Date	1992-01-14
Case Number	464

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