Though the charge of dowry death couldn’t be established in a trial court because of lack of evidence, the court prosecuted the accused under a charge of murder.
Worried about the plight of women who are discriminated against, the Delhi high court has given life imprisonment to the husband and mother-in-law of a woman who was killed eight years ago.
Though the charge of dowry death couldn’t be established in a trial court because of lack of evidence, the court prosecuted the accused under a charge of murder. Its decision rested on medical evidence, which established that Pinky had been burnt and assaulted when she was alive.
Though her mother-in-law Kamla Devi was sitting outside the house, she claimed not to have heard Pinky’s shrieks. Neither could the woman’s husband, Balbir, explain how his wife had been murdered.
A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Suresh Kait refused to believe Kamla Devi’s testimony. They also rubbished Balbir’s defense that Pinky had committed suicide. Upholding the trial court’s verdict, the high court said a trial court can prosecute a person under a different section from what is given in the charge sheet.
Interestingly, the judges upheld the trial court verdict even after hearing that Pinky’s two children said she hadn’t been tortured by the accused and that there was no dowry demand on her. The high court said the children had “betrayed the love of their mother”.
Justices Nandrajog and Kait expressed their anguish at the treatment of women in Indian society with these words, “A girl child is treated with a rough hand that starts even before her birth and ends with the dusk of her life.”
“Amidst the uproar about gender equality, female infants are found dumped in the trash and female foetuses continue to be snuffed out in the womb,” the judges said.
On the testimony of Pinky’s parents and her children, who went against the prosecution case, the judges said, “The case highlights the unfortunate plight of a woman where the parents and siblings betrayed the love and trust reposed in them by the deceased by helping the wrongdoers go scot-free.”
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