Prosecution must prove cruelty in dowry deaths

A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has reiterated that one of the essential ingredients of dowry death under Section 304B of the Penal Code is that the accused must have subjected the woman to cruelty in connection with demand for dowry soon before her death and that this ingredient has to be proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt and only then the court will presume that the accused has committed the offence of dowry death under Section 113B of the Indian Evidence Act. A bench comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Amitava Roy acquitted accused in-laws in a dowry death case, holding that the prosecution failed to prove this indispensable component of Sections 304B and 498A of the Penal Code beyond reasonable doubt. The court also held that the factum of unnatural death in the matrimonial home and that too within seven years of marriage, therefore, is thus ipso facto not sufficient to bring home the charge under Sections 304B and 498A of the Code against them. Two per-incuriam judgments A two-judge bench [Vikramjit Sen and Kurian Joseph JJ] of the Supreme Court in Sher Singh @ Partapa Vs. State of Haryana dt 9.1.2015, while dealing with S.304B IPC and S.113B Evidence Act, held as follows: The prosecution can discharge the initial burden to prove the ingredients of S.304B even by preponderance of probabilities. Once the presence of the concomitants are established or shown or proved by the prosecution, even by preponderance of possibility, the initial presumption of innocence is replaced by an assumption of guilt of the accused, thereupon, transferring the heavy burden of proof upon him and requiring him to produce evidence dislodging his guilt, beyond reasonable doubt.

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