Calcutta HC Reverses Acquittal, Convicts Husband and Four Others for Wife's Poisoning Death
A Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court convicted five accused persons for murder after finding the trial court's reading of the postmortem report and a child witness's testimony to be perverse.
A Division Bench of the High Court at Calcutta, comprising Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Rai Chattopadhyay, has set aside an acquittal recorded by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court-1, Diamond Harbour, South 24 Parganas, and convicted five accused persons for the murder of a woman who was beaten and forcibly administered poison at her matrimonial home in the night of 6 July 2006. The appeal was filed by the de facto complainant, the victim's elder brother, after a coordinate Bench granted special leave in November 2017. The Division Bench found the trial court's treatment of the postmortem report to be factually incorrect, its doubts about the child witness legally untenable, and the acquittal therefore perverse under the test in H.D. Sundara v. State of Karnataka, (2023) 9 SCC 581.
What Happened at the Matrimonial Home
The prosecution case was that the victim and her husband Samir Das had lived together for about four years after their marriage. Samir, a farmer, began pressuring the victim to bring money from her parental home. On the occasion of Jamaishasthi in 2006, he sent the victim to her parents with a demand of Rs 50,000, which her family could not meet. Shortly after her return, Samir, Samar Das (his elder brother), and Sabita Das (Samar's wife) snatched her gold ornaments.
In the early hours of 6 July 2006, Samir returned home drunk and began kicking and banging on the room door where the victim and their young son, PW 3, were sleeping. When the victim opened the door, Samir barged in and started beating her. Samar and Sabita, who had been at the matrimonial home since that morning, joined in. The victim was assaulted, fell to the floor, and was gasping for breath. When she asked for water, Sabita left the room and returned with a can of poison, which she handed to Samir. Samir pressed his leg on the victim's throat and poured the poison into her mouth. When she tried to vomit, he covered her mouth. Jharna Pramanik and Sankar Pramanik then changed the victim's soiled saree and dressed her in a fresh one.
The victim was taken by car to a local nursing home run by Dr. Golam Masur, where she was given an injection and referred to Diamond Harbour SD Hospital. On the way, Sankar Pramanik checked her body temperature, announced she was dead, and directed the vehicle back to the matrimonial home. The body was laid out on the veranda.
PW 1 received a phone call from Samar Das around 1:00 AM informing him that the victim had consumed poison and was admitted to a nursing home. PW 1, along with PW 6, PW 8, and PW 9 — all maternal relatives of the victim — hired a Tata Sumo and drove to the matrimonial village of Nainan. They found the victim's body on the veranda, covered with a white cloth, froth emanating from her mouth. They sensed some body temperature, indicating signs of life. When they attempted to shift her to Diamond Harbour SD Hospital, they were resisted by Jharna, Sankar, and Sanjay Pramanik, who physically obstructed and assaulted the group with a lathi and broomstick. The maternal relatives overcame the resistance and took her to hospital, where she was declared brought dead. The postmortem conducted on 7 July 2006 confirmed death by poisoning.
FIR, Charges, and the Trial Court's Acquittal
PW 1 lodged a written complaint on 7 July 2006 at Usthi Police Station. FIR No. 69 of 2006 was registered under Sections 498A, 306, and 34 of the IPC. After investigation, charges were initially framed on 28 July 2010 under Sections 498A and 306/34. The charge under Section 302 was added on 14 February 2014, and trial commenced.
The trial court acquitted all five accused. It held that PW 3's eyewitness account was inconsistent with medical evidence because the inquest report and postmortem report did not record injuries on the victim. It also doubted PW 3 on the ground that a minor child would not be awake at midnight, that the accused would not have acted in front of him, and that his Section 164 CrPC statement was recorded 20 days after the incident while he was staying with his maternal uncle, making him susceptible to tutoring. The trial court further found the evidence of prosecution witnesses inter se inconsistent regarding dowry demands.
Why the Trial Court's Reading of the Postmortem Report Was Perverse
The Division Bench found the trial court's central factual finding — that the postmortem report recorded no injuries — to be plainly wrong. The postmortem report in fact documented multiple bruises over the face, neck, chest, trunk, wrists, and limbs; nail scratch abrasions on the left side of the face; extravasation of blood in the occipital, parietal, and orbital regions; and bruises on the wrists.
Justice Mantha, writing for the Bench, analysed each injury category. The multiple bruises were consistent with fist blows and kicks by multiple persons. The nail scratch abrasions were consistent with an assailant forcibly holding a hand over the victim's face or mouth — directly corroborating PW 3's account of Samir covering her mouth as she tried to vomit out the poison. The blunt force trauma to the head was consistent with punches or kicks, and the wrist bruising was suggestive of restraint. The changed saree, far from being an unexplained detail, had a clear purpose: the original saree would have borne traces of poison and bodily discharge, making it evidence against the accused. The floor of the room, similarly, would have been cleaned before PW 1 and others arrived.
On the prosecution's failure to examine the postmortem doctor, the Bench applied Section 294(3) of the CrPC. Since the defence had not disputed the genuineness of the postmortem report at trial, the document could be read in evidence without the doctor being examined as a witness. The trial court's insistence on the doctor's oral evidence — while simultaneously treating the report as showing no injuries — compounded the error.
Reassessing PW 3, the Child Eyewitness
PW 3 was the victim's minor son, aged about seven at the time of the incident and twelve to thirteen at trial. The trial judge had assessed his competence through questions about the shape of the earth, a local river, and the distinction between a star and a planet. The Division Bench agreed the competence assessment was properly conducted.
The trial court's reason for doubting PW 3 — that a minor child would not be awake at midnight — was rejected outright. The Bench noted that the accused husband had aggressively kicked and banged on the locked door, which would have woken the child just as it woke the victim. PW 3 then hid under the bed, a reaction the Bench described as entirely natural for a terrified child. The accused husband, drunk and inebriated, may simply not have been aware of the child's presence, and the others were occupied with the victim.
The trial court had also faulted PW 3 for not explaining why Samar and Sabita joined the assault. The Division Bench held this to be a fundamental legal error: “a witness states the event, but not its cause.” A witness cannot be asked to supply a cause or justification for events he observed; that improperly seeks opinion evidence.
On the 20-day delay in recording PW 3's Section 164 statement, the Bench traced his movements. After the incident, PW 3 was held by Sabita and Samar for about seven days before being produced at Usthi Police Station. He then moved to his maternal uncle's home. The Bench drew on State of M.P. v. Ramesh, (2011) 4 SCC 78, and State of Madhya Pradesh v. Balveer Singh, 2025 INSC 261, to hold that delay in recording a child witness's statement must be evaluated against the child's lived circumstances, not discarded mechanically.
On the tutoring allegation, the Bench applied the two-fold test from Balveer Singh: first, whether there was an opportunity for tutoring; second, whether there was a reasonable likelihood of tutoring. PW 3 was residing with his maternal uncle, which gave the uncle the opportunity to tutor. But the defence failed to establish a motive for the uncle to falsely implicate the accused, and PW 3 withstood cross-examination without material contradiction. Certain details PW 3 added at trial that were absent from his police statement — such as Sabita specifically leaving and returning with poison — amounted to improvisation, not fabrication. The substance of his account remained consistent throughout.
Common Intention and the Roles of Each Accused
Learned counsel for the accused argued that common intention had not been proved against the co-accused persons and that the acquittals of the non-husband accused deserved to stand. The Bench disagreed.
Samar and Sabita lived in Sonarpur, approximately 30 kilometres from the matrimonial village of Nainan. Their presence at the matrimonial home since the morning of the fateful day was pre-planned and unexplained by them. Sabita's act of fetching the poison and handing it to Samir was a direct act of participation. Jharna Pramanik and Sankar Pramanik changed the victim's saree after the poisoning — an act of concealment. Sankar Pramanik had since died after the acquittal, and no appeal was filed against his acquittal. Jharna Pramanik, who also lived 30 kilometres away, was present without explanation.
Sanjay Pramanik's case required separate examination. The Bench noted that Sanjay was not a blood relative of Samir but the son of Samir's paternal aunt. He was present at the veranda when PW 1 and others arrived, actively resisting them from taking the victim to hospital. When the resistance failed, Sanjay himself narrated to PW 6 and PW 8 exactly how each accused had tortured and poisoned the victim. The Bench held that this disclosure, combined with his prior obstruction, demonstrated that Sanjay was privy to the plan. Applying Krishnamurthy alias Gunodu and Ors. v. State of Karnataka, (2022) 7 SCC 521, the Bench held that common intention can form minutes before the act and is established by inference from conduct before, during, and after the crime.
On the burden of proof, the Bench applied the principle from Trimukh Maroti Kirkan v. State of Maharashtra, (2006) 10 SCC 681, and State of W.B. v. Mir Mohammad Omar and Ors., (2000) 8 SCC 382: where a crime is committed inside a private dwelling and the accused were the only persons present, Section 106 of the Evidence Act places a corresponding burden on the inmates to explain what happened. The accused persons had advanced a positive plea that the victim committed suicide. They were therefore obliged to prove that she voluntarily consumed the poison. They adduced no such evidence and could not explain why they had not intervened to stop her.
The plea that the victim was taken to Dr. Golam Masur's nursing home was also disbelieved. PW 5, a neighbour who was hostile to the prosecution, had himself deposed that the village of Nainan had no private vehicle facility in 2006 — a fact that made the claim of transporting the victim by car to a private nursing home implausible. The accused persons did not summon the doctor as a witness, which the Bench treated as supporting an adverse inference.
Outcome
The Division Bench set aside the judgment and order of acquittal dated 30 March 2017 and allowed CRA 669 of 2017. The case was held to fall outside Section 306 of the IPC (abetment of suicide) given PW 3's direct evidence that the victim tried to vomit out the poison forcibly administered to her.
Samir Das, Samar Das, Sabita Das, Sanjay Pramanik, and Jharna Pramanik were convicted under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 24 years each from the date they are taken into custody. After serving 24 years, they become eligible for remission as applicable. Pre-trial and post-trial detention is to be set off. Each convicted person is to pay a fine of Rs 15,000 to the State, to be remitted to the High Court Legal Services Authority; in default, each is to undergo simple imprisonment for one year.
Samir Das was additionally convicted under Section 498A of the IPC and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for one year. He is to pay a fine of Rs 25,000 to the State, to be remitted to the High Court Legal Services Authority; in default, he is to undergo simple imprisonment for six months.
All convicted persons are directed to surrender before the trial court within three weeks. In default, the trial judge is to take steps to apprehend them. The State is to take all legal steps for recovery of the fines. There is no order as to costs.