Her five-year-old son was in the room and had burns on both hands, and the prosecution never once recorded what he saw

Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja set aside a 2003 life sentence, holding the declarations did not present a consistent account and that a neighbour's unchallenged evidence placed the appellant outside the house.

On 11 April 1999 at about 1.40 p.m. a duty constable at LNJP Hospital reported that a woman had been admitted in a burnt condition by her father. Police reached the house in Wazirpur village and collected her medical-legal case record: 100 per cent burns. The doctor declared her fit for statement at about 3.45 p.m. and the investigating officer recorded one. Because the incident fell within seven years of her marriage, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate was informed; he came to the hospital, took the doctor's permission, and at about 5.30 p.m., she having again been declared fit, recorded a second statement. In it she said she had been insisting her husband take her to visit her aunt, he had refused, then beaten her, poured kerosene on her and set her ablaze. An FIR under Section 307 followed. She died at about 2.45 a.m. the next day, and the section was replaced with Sections 304-B, 498-A and 34. The post-mortem gave the cause of death as shock from 100 per cent dermo-epidermal burns.

The husband was arrested on 12 April 1999; his parents were arrested that June and discharged in September. He was convicted on 23 October 2003 under Sections 302 and 498-A and sentenced on 30 October 2003 to life imprisonment with a fine, and three years with a fine on the Section 498-A count. On 14 October 2026, twenty-three years later, his appeal was allowed and he was acquitted of all charges.

What he always said

His account never changed. In his statement under Section 313 he said he had good relations with his wife, that she suffered from tuberculosis and other ailments which left her frustrated and quick to lose her temper, and that in six years of marriage she had threatened suicide on a number of occasions. On the occurrence, he said he was outside the house with neighbours when he heard the alarm, rushed in and saw her already burning, and that he and their minor son tried to save her, in the process of which his hands, chest and face got burnt. He said she had told the doctor who first attended her that she had committed suicide, and that she gave a false statement to the investigating officer and the Magistrate after being tutored by her parents and relatives. He denied ever demanding dowry.

He examined four defence witnesses. One deposed that he saw the wife on fire, that the child also suffered minor burn injuries, that she said “Mere Se Galti Ho Gayi Hai” — I have made a mistake — and that he and others including the appellant removed her to hospital. A second corroborated that version. A third deposed that he was standing near the house when she set herself on fire, that he went to the hospital, that she was conscious and pleading with the doctor to save her as she had committed a blunder by setting herself ablaze, and that before the Magistrate arrived her relatives and parents met her and told her to make a statement implicating the appellant. The fourth, the appellant's brother-in-law, had accompanied her in the auto-rickshaw to hospital and deposed that on the way she asked him to save her and said she had committed a blunder by setting herself on fire, and that her father tutored her at the hospital to blame the appellant and his family.

The Court noted that the defence witnesses were cross-examined by the Additional Public Prosecutor and that nothing was pointed out in their cross-examination of any help to the prosecution. Their testimonies have the same evidentiary value as prosecution witnesses and cannot be discarded merely because they were produced by the appellant in his defence.

What the investigation gathered

The investigation itself was not perfunctory. The investigating officer prepared a site plan of the place of occurrence, the crime team was called and photographs of the scene were taken. A stove, a burnt saree, a petticoat, a burnt chunni, a matchbox and a burnt match stick were lifted from the spot, sealed in separate pullandas and seized by memo. When she died, the Magistrate conducted the inquest proceedings and the post-mortem was carried out. Two letters written by the deceased to her parents were seized along with a list of dowry articles, and the appellant's parents were arrested that June, though they were discharged in September 1999 when charges were framed against him alone. Twenty-four witnesses were examined for the prosecution, including her parents, the Magistrate, the doctor and the investigating officer.

So the case that reached the trial court in 2003 had two statements by the deceased, physical exhibits from the scene, letters in her own hand, four related witnesses on dowry harassment and three neighbours. The Division Bench worked through each category, and what it found was that the material either contradicted itself or pointed the other way.

Fitness, and what was not on the record

The reasoning on the declarations proceeds from the medical position rather than from the content. The first statement was recorded before any medicine was administered and before she was admitted to the burns ward for diagnosis and management. No medical evidence came on record as to the line of treatment or the medicines given to her.

For the law the Bench went to three decisions. In Chacko v. State of Kerala the Supreme Court declined to accept a dying declaration by a man of 70 with 80 per cent burns, recorded eight or nine hours after the burns and giving minute details of motive and manner; a description of the patient as “conscious, talking” in the wound certificate would not in and of itself testify to the condition of the patient making such a declaration, nor would the oral evidence of the doctor or the investigating officer. In Surinder Kumar v. State of Haryana a declaration by a person with 95 to 97 per cent burns was not accepted because she was under the influence of Fortwin and Pethidine injections and could not have had normal alertness. And in Abhishek Sharma the Court held that in the absence of clarification regarding the mental state in which a declaration was made it cannot safely be relied upon without corroboration — noting there that although it was the third statement, no attempt was made to have it recorded before a doctor or magistrate, that treatment had been administered by then, and that in the absence of a positive statement by the medical team it could not be said with certainty that the medicines had no effect of impairing mental fitness.

Applying that, since the victim had suffered 100 per cent burns and her subsequent declarations were recorded after she had already been shifted to the burns ward for treatment, and in the absence of any positive medical evidence regarding the treatment given, the Court held it was difficult to accept that she was in a fit mental state to give the subsequent declarations, and that they could not be relied on to hold the appellant guilty of murder.

The dowry allegations unravel

Four related witnesses deposed that the deceased was harassed over dowry and in particular over a scooter. The Court found the testimonies contradicted each other. The father deposed that when his daughter came to them twenty days after the marriage as per custom she was all right and made no complaint against anybody; that she stayed about a month and was taken back; and that when she returned five or six months later she said the accused beat her when she asked for household money and taunted her that nothing had been given in the marriage. He said she complained six or seven times, and that on one occasion she said the accused beat her and asked her to bring a scooter. He deposed to two letters in her handwriting complaining about the accused and his family, but said in cross-examination that she had not mentioned the demand of a scooter in her letter. He said the accused's family had demanded a fridge, a cooler and ₹30,000 in cash before the marriage but he had given only a fridge, and admitted he had made no complaint about any dowry demand before the marriage.

The mother listed what had been given at the marriage — sofa, dressing table, fridge, almirah, bed, seven pairs of clothes, a set of jewellery, gold ring, gold chain, wrist watch, 185 utensils and a sewing machine — and deposed that a two-wheeler scooter had been demanded before the marriage, that when they brought the daughter home fifteen days after the marriage her father-in-law demanded a fridge, and that she reported beatings by the accused's brothers and mother-in-law, abuse by her father-in-law after drinking, threats to kill her, an attempt to strangulate her and being made to fall from a scooter twice.

The contradictions the Court identified are specific: the father said no complaint was made on the first visit, while the mother said the father-in-law demanded a fridge on that very visit; the father said there was no specific demand except a scooter and that it came after the marriage, while the mother placed the scooter demand before the marriage. It was admitted that neither the deceased nor any family member ever complained to the police about dowry harassment. And the two letters, sent in 1995, complained that the appellant had broken her dowry articles, abused her and beaten her when she asked for money for expenses, but made no complaint of harassment on account of any dowry demand, and none about a scooter. Neither the statement before the Magistrate nor the one before the investigating officer alleged dowry-related harassment at all; the only cause she attributed was that she was insisting the appellant visit her aunt. The allegations were therefore held vague and uncorroborated and not believable, and the Court observed that the parents and family appear to have been firmly convinced that the appellant had killed their daughter, so that there is a possibility they tutored her to implicate him.

The witness the prosecution did not challenge, and the one it did not call

The prosecution also failed to establish the appellant's presence at the spot at the time of the occurrence — on its own evidence. A neighbour, examined as a prosecution witness, deposed that on hearing the alarm she came out and found the appellant's wife in flames, and at that time she saw the accused rushing towards his house from outside, after which the wife's family took her to hospital. In cross-examination she admitted that the accused along with others took his wife to hospital, that he had also suffered burn injuries on his face and chest, and that he entered the house after his wife had got burnt. She was neither declared hostile nor cross-examined by the Additional Public Prosecutor. The Court held it thus proved from her testimony that the appellant was not present at the time of the occurrence and reached only thereafter. Two other neighbours did not support the prosecution and were declared hostile, and their cross-examination was of no help.

Then there is the child. The deceased herself stated before the Magistrate that her son was present at the time of the occurrence; her father confirmed that both the boy's hands had been burnt. The five-year-old was thus an eyewitness who had himself suffered injuries, and his presence is consistent with the defence witness who deposed that the boy said within everyone's hearing that his mother committed suicide and his father had tried to save her. He was the most important witness to the occurrence. Yet he was neither examined during investigation nor produced in court, despite being in the custody of his maternal grandfather. The first investigating officer said he did not meet the son at the hospital and was not aware that he was an eyewitness; the second said the boy was an eyewitness but that on interrogation he did not find him mature enough to give rational answers; the deceased's own father said in cross-examination that the boy was capable of giving a reply. The Court found that no effort appears to have been made to record his statement.

The appellant's own injuries closed the circle. His medical-legal record proves he suffered 10 per cent burns, recording burns on both hands, the forearm and the upper part of the chest — consistent with his defence that he tried to extinguish the fire and was burnt in the process.

Taken cumulatively, the circumstances were held sufficient to create a reasonable doubt about the prosecution's theory of homicidal death caused by the appellant. The burden was not merely to establish that she died an unnatural death but that the appellant was the perpetrator, and that burden had not been discharged to the standard required for a conviction under Sections 498-A and 302. The various declarations made by the deceased do not present a uniform or consistent account of the occurrence, differ materially, and do not inspire confidence.

The appeal was allowed, the judgment and order on sentence set aside, and the appellant acquitted of all charges, his bail bond to remain valid for three months. A copy of the judgment was directed to be sent to the trial court and the Superintendent, Jail. Mr L.K. Singh appeared for the appellant; Mr Aman Usman, Additional Public Prosecutor, with Mr Manvendra Yadav for the State.