Dowry Death Acquittal Reversed; Supreme Court Issues Nationwide Directions on Enforcing the Dowry Prohibition Act

The woman, married just over a year, was set on fire with kerosene on 5 June 2001, a day after her husband repeated the demand for a colour TV, a motorcycle and Rs. 15,000 (para 10). The Trial Court convicted the husband and his mother under Sections 304-B and 498-A IPC and Sections 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, with life imprisonment under Section 304-B (para 11). The Allahabad High Court acquitted both, doubting the witnesses and finding the demands improbable because the accused were poor (para 12). The State appealed (para 13).

Because the two courts below reached opposite findings, the Court reappraised the evidence itself (para 15). The demand, repeated a day before the death, was proved, so the death followed harassment 'soon before her death' as explained in Ashok Kumar, and the unrebutted presumption under Section 113-B of the Evidence Act applied (para 20). Discrepancies do not justify discarding the whole of the prosecution evidence (para 19). The uncle never claimed to have seen the act, so the contradiction about his presence did not touch his core account, which could not be rejected on conjecture (para 21). One word, 'happily', in the father's testimony could not colour the whole evidence, and the mother's similar remark was an outlier (para 22). The Dowry Prohibition Act does not distinguish demands made before or after marriage, and the view that poor accused could not have made such demands does not appeal to reason (para 23). Given her age of 94, the mother's conviction was restored without imprisonment on humanitarian grounds (para 24). Dowry offends Article 14, and the law oscillates between ineffective enforcement and misuse (paras 7, 25).