Burnt on Bhai Dooj, she named them: Delhi HC upholds murder verdict on police ASI and family
Twenty-eight years after a woman was set on fire on Bhai Dooj, a Delhi High Court bench upheld murder convictions of her husband, a Delhi Police ASI, his mother and a sister-in-law on the strength of her dying declaration, and acquitted three women of cruelty on the benefit of doubt.
The defence said a woman burnt over her whole body could not have pressed a thumb on her own dying declaration. On 30 October 2026 the Delhi High Court sent for the original trial record and looked at the page itself.
The thumb impression was almost blank, with no discernible ridges. The bench said that matched what 100 per cent burns do to a hand.
Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Arun Bhardwaj upheld the murder convictions of Tilak Raj, an Assistant Sub-Inspector of Delhi Police, and his mother Anokhi Devi. In a companion appeal decided the same day, they upheld the murder conviction of his sister Sharmishtha.
The bench also set aside the cruelty convictions of all three women: Raj Kumari, who faced only that charge, and Anokhi Devi and Sharmishtha. Justice Arun Bhardwaj wrote the judgment.
A fire in the gallery on Bhai Dooj
The woman married Tilak Raj on 9 May 1997. The prosecution said she was harassed in her marital home over demands for money and a Maruti car.
On 21 October 1998, the day of Bhai Dooj, she was brought to LNJP Hospital with burns over her whole body. Police received the information at 9.35 pm. She was declared unfit to make a statement that night.
The investigating officer, ASI Sobran Singh, went to the family house in Kondli, in Delhi. The floor had been cleaned, but he noticed a smell of kerosene.
The statement recorded the next day
On 22 October, Dr Vishal Raina declared her fit to make a statement at 12.15 pm. SDM Ravi Dadhich arrived at 12.20 pm and wrote down her answers in Hindi, in question-and-answer form.
She said her husband used to harass her and had asked for a Maruti car. She had brought Rs 50,000 from her parents twice. Kerosene was sprinkled on her in the gallery, she said. At about 9 to 9.30 pm they caught hold of her, and a sister-in-law set her ablaze.
She named her husband, father-in-law Prem Singh, mother-in-law Anokhi Devi, two sisters-in-law, Sudesh and Sharmishtha, and a brother-in-law, Hans Raj. She said her husband had told her to go to her parental home on Bhai Dooj and bring a car. She added that a third sister-in-law, Raj Kumari, used to visit from Meerut, but had not come the day before.
An FIR (No. 527/1998, Police Station Kalyan Puri) was registered at 1.45 pm. She died on 23 October and the case was converted to Section 304-B of the IPC.
Witnesses lost, witnesses turned
The prosecution lost its main family witnesses. The woman’s father, mother and one brother died in an accident before they could testify.
Her surviving brother, Ashok Kumar (PW-3), turned hostile, as did two other witnesses. The State said his unwillingness may have followed the deaths of his parents and brother in quick succession.
The trial court examined 21 prosecution witnesses and three for the defence. It convicted Tilak Raj, Prem Singh and Anokhi Devi under Sections 302/34, 201/34 and 498A/34 of the IPC, and sentenced each to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 5,000. Raj Kumari was convicted under Section 498A/34 and given two years’ rigorous imprisonment.
Seven attacks on the dying declaration
Mr D.B. Goswami argued for the appellants that the conviction rested only on the SDM’s record, which was not free from doubt. Who found the patient fit to speak was unclear, he said.
The SDM said he was told at about 11 am that she was fit, an hour and a quarter before the doctor’s 12.15 pm endorsement. The defence said the investigating officer could have manipulated the statement.
The post-mortem doctor, Dr Bhim Singh (PW-15), had said that in 100 per cent burns the skin degloves, so a thumb impression could not be taken and speech was unlikely. The defence argued that he was a prosecution witness, and that the declaration still carried a right-thumb impression and named every in-law.
It also argued that the doctor’s endorsement was not on the declaration itself, that the FIR was not registered on 21 October, and that the parents, Prem Singh and Anokhi Devi, had been in Bulandshahr for Bhai Dooj. Their alibi rested on Anokhi Devi’s brother, Karan Singh (DW-2).
The defence said the woman had killed herself in frustration, because doctors had told her she could not conceive. For Raj Kumari, it said she had been married with three children and lived at Ghaziabad, with nothing to gain from a dowry demand.
What the trial court had found
The trial judge relied on the doctor’s fitness endorsement, the SDM’s evidence and the court witness, Dr Ahuja. He treated the declaration as a statement about the cause of death, and said the cleaned scene backed it.
On the timing contradictions, he said they did not rock the boat. Witnesses had testified more than two years after the incident, and memory fades, as the Supreme Court said in State of Punjab v. Wassan Singh.
What the State said
Mr Aman Usman, the Additional Public Prosecutor, called the fabrication theory a substitute for the consistent evidence of an independent public officer. The SDM, the constable and the investigating officer all placed the SDM at the hospital, he said.
He relied on State of M.P. v. Dal Singh for the point that the percentage of burns does not decide whether someone can speak or press a thumb. He also pointed to the cleaned scene as inconsistent with suicide, and to what it called a false history of suicide that Tilak Raj gave the doctor.
Can a patient with 100% burns speak?
The court had called its own witness. Dr Rajiv Ahuja (CW-2), head of plastic surgery at LNJP Hospital, said a patient with 100 per cent burns can become fit to give a statement. The early disorientation comes from shock, he said, and resuscitation can correct it.
The brain is never burnt in such cases, he added. The injury is to the skin, and other organs are hit later by loss of fluid and infection. The bench said this explained why the woman was unfit on 21 October and fit the next day.
The death summary recorded a history of suicide. Dr Ahuja said the history in the hospital file had been given by the husband. The bench held that this entry rested on Tilak Raj’s say-so alone and could not help him.
Neither certificate nor thumbprint is mandatory
On the law, the bench drew on Laxman v. State of Maharashtra, Govindappa v. State of Karnataka and Dal Singh. There is no prescribed form for a dying declaration, and a Magistrate’s satisfaction that the person was fit can be enough, even without a doctor.
Applying that to the record, it held:
“neither a doctor’s certificate nor a thumb impression is a legal requirement” (para 64)
for a valid dying declaration. Both are a rule of caution, it said, and here the declaration carried a medical endorsement.
The judges looked at the paper
The bench then went beyond the scanned file. To satisfy its conscience, it called the physical records of the trial court rather than rely on a scanned copy.
The thumb impression showed no discernible curves or ridges. It was almost blank, which the bench said matched the medical condition of the victim, 100 per cent burns and degloving of both hands.
The SDM could not be expected to have a burn specialist’s knowledge, the court said. Nothing showed he knew degloving would make the print meaningless. It appeared he took the impression as a precaution, without realising what the skin had done.
Memory, timing and a tutored statement
The timing gap fell away on the evidence. The constable told the investigating officer when the patient became fit, the officer told the SDM, and the SDM had asked on 21 October to be told. Witnesses were examined more than two years after the event, which explained the variation.
The court observed that the human mind “neither possesses a video camera nor a tape recorder” (para 72). Small lapses, it said, tend to support a witness, as perfect lies are more common than perfect truths.
The bench also found the declaration untutored. If it had been tutored, no one in the family would have been spared, but the woman said Raj Kumari was not there. It added that nothing suggested why ASI Sobran Singh, a colleague of Tilak Raj, would manipulate it.
Suicide and alibi rejected
The infertility defence failed for want of evidence. The defence doctor had not given the final result, and the trial court noted that the report was withheld. Even if she were depressed, the trial court asked, why would she name the accused?
The alibi for Prem Singh and Anokhi Devi rested on her own brother. The investigating officer said that at about 12.30 or 1 am he met the accused’s parents at the house, and twice denied that they had been summoned from Bulandshahr.
The court said that anyone who had travelled would have independent proof of the trip. The motive, it held, was in the declaration itself: the husband’s demand for a Maruti car, and Rs 50,000 twice already paid.
A cleaned house and a trained policeman
On Section 201, the bench said Tilak Raj, as an ASI, had enough training to know a crime scene must be preserved. The officer found the house cleaned but smelling of kerosene. That, it held, showed destruction of evidence.
It confirmed Tilak Raj’s conviction and Anokhi Devi’s under Section 302/34. It found nothing to doubt in the prosecution story.
Cruelty: only the husband remains
Section 498A needed proof of cruelty, either conduct likely to drive a woman to suicide or serious harm, or harassment to meet an unlawful demand. The bench treated the brother’s account of what his sister had said as hearsay. Mr Ashok Kumar’s wife, who was told of the harassment, was never examined.
That left the dying declaration. Her opening line, that her in-laws harassed her, was too vague to say whom it covered. The lines about the car and the Rs 50,000 pointed only at the husband, and his Section 498A conviction stood.
Anokhi Devi was acquitted of cruelty because no demand was attributed to her. Raj Kumari was acquitted because the single line against her, that she came from Meerut and used to tutor others, left only guesswork. Her conviction was set aside.
Sharmishtha: a separate trial, separate evidence
Sharmishtha, the second sister-in-law, had been declared a proclaimed offender on 20 April 2001 and was arrested on 11 September 2002. She was tried separately in Sessions Case No. 163/2002.
On 21 May 2005 the trial court convicted her under Sections 302/34 and 498A/34. It sentenced her to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs 3,000, and to two years’ rigorous imprisonment on the second charge. Her appeal is Crl.A. 709/2005.
Her counsel adopted the arguments from the other appeals. The bench cited A.T. Mydeen v. Assistant Commissioner, Customs and held that each appeal must be decided only on the evidence in its own trial. It would not use material from the co-accused’s trial.
That ruled out the degloving evidence. Dr Bhim Singh had not testified at her trial, so the court declined to decide that point in her case, though the other arguments were addressed.
Why the murder conviction stayed
The dying declaration spoke of two sisters-in-law being present. The bench reasoned that the woman had three, and had said Raj Kumari was absent, so the reference covered Sharmishtha and Sudesh. Her brother, PW-4, also said the woman had named Sharmishtha in hospital.
Sharmishtha was a proclaimed offender for more than three years, and the court treated that abscondence as conduct under Section 8 of the Evidence Act. She led no evidence for her alibi. The court rejected the adopted arguments on timing, memory, suicide, FIR delay and hostile witnesses, as it had in the main appeals.
On cruelty, it said neither her brother’s testimony nor the declaration made clear what she had done. She was acquitted under Section 498A on the benefit of doubt.
Order
In Crl.A. 600/2002, Tilak Raj’s convictions under Sections 302, 201, 498A and 34 of the IPC were upheld. His bail bond was cancelled, and he must surrender to the Jail Superintendent within three working days.
Anokhi Devi’s conviction under Sections 302/201/34 was upheld, and she was acquitted under Section 498A. She is 77 and has served five years, seven months and one day. Her sentence was reduced to that period. The appeal of Prem Singh abated after his death.
In Crl.A. 599/2002, Raj Kumari’s conviction under Section 498A/34 was set aside. In Crl.A. 709/2005, Sharmishtha’s conviction under Section 498A/34 was set aside and her Section 302/34 conviction upheld. Her bail bond was cancelled, and she must surrender within three working days.
The bench also remarked that it found it hard to accept that the daughter and son of a Delhi Police ASI, Sudesh and Hans Raj, remained proclaimed offenders since 1998. It asked the Commissioner of Police to take all possible steps to arrest them, and to file monthly progress reports before the trial court.