Source: Supreme Court

Why in News?

• The Supreme Court (SC) has maintained the appellant's conviction in a dowry death case, even in light of a negative result in the viscera report, in the case of Buddhadeb Saha v. State of West Bengal.

Background

• A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged regarding Tuli Shah who was married to the appellant No. 1 (Buddhadeb Saha).
• At the time of marriage, cash and gold ornaments were given to the family of the husband of Tuli Shah, however she was harassed for want of more dowry soon after the marriage.
• In 2011 a couple of months after marriage, the deceased (Tuli Shah) committed suicide by consuming poison on account of incessant harassment by her husband at her matrimonial home.
• Upon completion of the investigation, a charge sheet was filed and the Trial Court framed charge for the offence punishable under Sections 304B, 498A, read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).
• Trial Court upon appreciation of the evidence on record concluded that prosecution had successfully established its case against the accused persons beyond reasonable doubt and accordingly held them guilty.
• An appeal was made against the above conviction to the High Court (HC) however the judgment of the Trial Court was affirmed.
• The appeal was hence made to the present court (SC) on the ground:
  • This is a case of no evidence as prosecution has not been able to establish the exact cause of death.
  • Emphasis was placed on the fact that the post-mortem report does not say anything about the exact cause of death and also, the histopathology report is silent about any traces of poison in the viscera.
    • The state however responded that, legislature has used word shall under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872(IEA), in view of the word “shall”, the Court is left with no other option but to draw the presumption that this is a case of Dowry Death.
    • State also submitted that, there was a long delay in forwarding the sample of viscera collected during the course of post-mortem to the Forensic Science Laboratory and possibly due to a delay, the histopathology report does not contain any information regarding the presence of poison in the viscera.

Court’s Observations

• The SC took note of a research paper published in IP International Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicological Sciences titled “Negative viscera report and its medico-legal aspects” in which it was mentioned that the Viscera Report may come negative due to three major reasons based on how:
  • Procedure is conducted.
  • Sample is collected.
  • Laboratory tests the samples.
• The SC further took notice of the case Mahabir Mandal v. State of Bihar, (1972) in which it was held that the absence of detection of poison in the viscera report alone need not be treated as a conclusive proof of the fact that the victim has not died of poison.
• The bench comprising of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Prashant Kumar Mishra of SC in the present case has opined that one should not solely rely on the absence of poison detection in the viscera report as conclusive proof that the victim did not die from poisoning.

Legal Provisions

Dowry Death

• Dowry has been defined by Section 2 of Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 as: Any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly—
  • By one party to a marriage to the other party to the marriage; or
  • 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 dower or mahr in the case of persons to whom the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) applies.
    Explanation II — The expression “valuable security” has the same meaning as in section 30 of the IPC.
• Dowry Death is defined by Section 304B of IPC as:
  Section 304B - Dowry death —
  (1) Where the death of a woman is caused by any burns or bodily injury or occurs otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of her marriage and it is shown that soon before her death she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any relative of her husband for, or in connection with, any demand for dowry, such death shall be called “dowry death”, and such husband or relative shall be deemed to have caused her death.
  Explanation — For the purposes of this sub-section, “dowry” shall have the same meaning as in section 2 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 (28 of 1961).
  (2) Whoever commits dowry death shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life.
• Presumption as to dowry death is provided by Section 113-B of the Indian Evidence Act,1872.
  Section 113B - Presumption as to dowry death. – When the question is whether a person has committed the dowry death of a woman and it is shown that soon before her death such woman had been subjected by such person to cruelty or harassment for, or in connection with, any demand for dowry, the court shall presume that such person had caused the dowry death.
  Explanation – For the purposes of this section, “dowry death” shall have the same meaning as in section 304B of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860).

Case Law

In Satbir Singh v. State of Haryana (2021), SC explained the interpretations in case of Dowry Death as:

• Section 304­B, IPC must be interpreted keeping in mind the legislative intent to curb the social evil of bride burning and dowry demand.
• The prosecution must establish first the existence of the necessary ingredients for constituting an offence under Section 304B, IPC. Once these ingredients are satisfied, the rebuttable presumption of causality, provided under Section 113B IEA operates against the accused.
• The phrase “soon before” as appearing in Section 304­B, IPC cannot be construed to mean ‘immediately before’. The prosecution must establish existence of “proximate and live link” between the dowry death and cruelty or harassment for dowry demand by the husband or his relatives.