Deepak Kumar Agarwal, J.

1. The instant Criminal Appeal has been preferred by the appellant under Section 374(1) of CrPC challenging the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 24th September, 2001 passed by Tenth Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track Court), Gwalior in Sessions Trial No. 47 of 1990, whereby the appellant has been convicted under Section 304-B of IPC and sentenced to undergo seven years Rigorous Imprisonment, three years Rigorous Imprisonment for offence under Section 498-A of IPC and two years Rigorous Imprisonment for offence under Section 201 of IPC. All the sentences have been directed to run concurrently.

2. Prosecution case, in brief, is that the marriage of Meenu (since deceased), daughter of Sukhdev Prasad Shukla (PW7) was solemnized with Sureshdutta Sharma (appellant-accused herein) son of Kalicharan Sharma. In marriage, as per their capacity, the mother and father of deceased had given dowry. After six months of marriage, appellant along with his family members started demanding TV, gold chain and ring and due to non-fulfillment of their demand, appellant started committing marpeet and misbehaved with her. Due to this ill-treatment, the mother, father and brother of deceased took deceased to their house. Thereafter, on 28-01-1988, a compromise took place between the parents of deceased and appellant-accused as well as his family members. An assurance was given by the appellant-accused that he will not treat the deceased with cruelty. By executing written note in this regard by both the appellant and the deceased vide Ex.P4 and Ex.P3 respectively, the deceased was sent to her in-laws house. Even thereafter having been compromised, accused-appellant Suresh Dutta and his family members keeping demand of dowry treated the deceased with cruelty and also committed marpeet with her. On 27-04-1989, accused appellant came to house of his in-laws to bring back deceased Meenu and then in the afternoon, the brother of deceased Deepak Shukla left her in the rented house of appellant situated at Lakhadkhana. It is further alleged that accused appellant again committed marpeet with the deceased and in unnatural circumstances deceased died at around 04:00 pm. Without giving information either to the police or to the parents of deceased, the appellant along with Ashok and Kailash took the dead body of deceased for cremation to Village Urva.

3. On getting information about the death of deceased, the father of deceased Sukhdev Prasad Shukla (PW7) came to Police Station Madhoganj and lodged a report whereupon merg No. 14 of 1989 was recorded and investigation was begun. Thereafter, police force along with father of deceased Sukhdev Prasad Sharma was sent to Village Urva for recovery of dead body of deceased where Bier (arthi) was kept at cremation ground and police was not allowed to recovery the same and the bier was set on fire and the accused persons present at cremation ground attacked on the father of deceased and his sons. The police could not complete its proceedings and thereafter, accused persons flown the ashes and half-burnt bones of deceased into a canal so that, the evidence may be destroyed. A report in respect of causing obstruction in the work of the police was lodged at Police Station Ghatigaon. Thereafter, on the next day i.e. 28-04-1989, spot map of the incident was prepared. In the presence of witnesses, ashes and half-burnt bones were seized from the cremation ground as well as from canal and thereafter, the same were sent for chemical examination to FSL Sagar. The statements of witnesses were recorded. Accused were arrested. After completion of investigation and other formalities, a charge sheet was filed before the Court of Additional CJM, Gwalior from where the case was committed to the Sessions Court for its trial.

4. Accused denied the charges and pleaded complete. In support of defence, accused examined Brajesh Tiwari and Ram Singh as DW1 and DW2.

5. Prosecution, in order to prove its case, examined ten witnesses including three material witnesses, namely, father, mother and brother of deceased i.e. Sukhdev Prasad (PW7), Munni Devi (PW8) and Deepak Shukla (PW1).

6. After appreciating the entire evidence and other materials available on record, the learned trial Court held the appellant guilty and convicted and sentenced him accordingly for the offences as mentioned in paragraph 1 of this judgment. Hence, this appeal.

7. Challenging the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence, it is contended on behalf of the appellant that the deceased died due to her own illness. The cremation of the deceased was performed at Village Urva and parents of the deceased were also present at the time of performing of her last rites. It is further contended that the parents of deceased regarding death of deceased were informed. It is also contended that the father of the deceased was working in the Police Department; therefore, in order to taking advantage of it, a false merg was recorded. There is nothing on record in regard to demand of dowry or treating cruelty with the deceased by her in-laws, therefore, in absence of ingredients, offence under Section 304-B and 498-A of IPC is not made out against the present appellant. There is some omission in the police diary statement as well as Court statement of the father of deceased, who in para 12 of his cross-examination has specifically stated that no demand of TV or fridge was made from the in-laws. It is further contended that the deceased allegedly died an unnatural death could not be sufficient to bring home a charge under Section 201 of IPC. Unless the prosecution was able to establish that the accused person known or had reason to believe that an offence has been committed and had done something causing the offence of commission of evidence to disappear, he cannot be convicted. It is further contended that on the one hand, while taking a different view the learned trial Court on the same set of evidence has passed an order of acquittal in favour of 23 co-accused persons and on the other hand, convicted and sentenced the present appellant only by not giving the benefit of doubt. Therefore, the learned trial Court has committed a manifest error in convicting and sentencing the present appellant. Hence, the impugned judgment is illegal and against the evidence on record and the same deserves to be set aside.

8. Per contra, learned counsel for the State supported the impugned judgment and submitted that there being no infirmity in the impugned judgment of conviction and sentence and the findings arrived at by the trial Court do not require any interference by this Court. Hence, prayed for dismissal of this appeal.

9. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the materials available on record and gone through the evidence of material witnesses.

10. Sukhdev Prasad Shukla (PW7) who is the father of the deceased in his evidence deposed that the marriage of his daughter deceased Meenu was solemnized with accused-appellant in the month of December, 1984 and this fact has been fully corroborated by the brother and mother of deceased also. This witness has deposed that he had given household and other articles as well as cash as per his capacity in marriage of his daughter. In his cross-examination he deposed that the accused persons had not demanded anything in the dowry at the time of marriage. After solemnization of marriage, accused appellant treated his daughter with cruelty due to non-fulfillment of demand of gold chain. He further deposed that as and when his daughter comes to the maternal home, at that time, she used to tell that accused-appellant asked her to bring TV and when he refused to give TV, the appellant-accused started demanding gas from his daughter and when he also refused to give gas, appellant-accused appellant started committing marpeet with his daughter. This witness further deposed that accused appellant himself demanded Rs. 5,000/-showing his need. This witness in respect of incident of 20-08-1987 deposed that the appellant-accused came to his house in the afternoon and on giving threaten he took his daughter deceased Meenu with him. This witness was informed that the accused-appellant had come in very angry mood and it is probable that he will commit marpeet with deceased.

On this, he went to the room of appellant-accused at Lakhadkhana where the accused-appellant used to reside as an tenant. He also deposed that the doors of room were locked from inside and accused-appellant was committing marpeet with deceased Meenu inside the room. When he tried to get open the door, then doors were not opened and they were opened after some time, then he saw that the deceased was sitting in the corner of inside room and her hair were opened and there was swelling on her face. At that time, the deceased told him that accused appellant have beaten her by catching hold of her hair. Thereafter, he took his daughter deceased to his house and lodged a report of this incident at Mahila Police Station Kotwali from where she was sent for medical examination. Dr. J.N. Sharma and Dr. Jagtab had conducted examination of injuries of deceased Meenu. This witness further deposed that the police had not taken any action on his report due to which, he also made a complaint to the senior officers of police but his grievance was not addressed. During cross-examination, this witness admitted that he had neither instituted any private complaint in this regard before concerning Magistrate nor had filed any medical papers regarding the treatment of injuries of his daughter-deceased.

This fact has been well-supported by his son Deepak Shukla (PW1). This witness further deposed that after the incident, the accused party had come several times to his house to take the deceased to their house but he did not sent. This fact has also been fully supported by brother and mother of deceased, Deepak Shukla (PW1) and Munni Devi (PW8). This witness further deposed that accused appellant and his father Kalicharan (father-in-law of deceased) as well as son-in-law of Kalicharan (brother-in-law of deceased) came to his house and told for sending the deceased as there is a marriage of daughter at their place. Afterwards, accused-appellant executed a compromise of Ex.P4 of this regard that the appellant shall never commit marpeet with the deceased in future and get her education completed and never give any chance to make any kind of complain. According to this witness, his daughter had also executed Ex.P3 before the witnesses. This witness has expressed to have signatures of father-in-law of the deceased and brother-in-law of the deceased at B2 to B and C2 to C part of Ex.P4. This witness has also admitted that there are signatures of father-in-law of the deceased, brother-in-law of the deceased, the deceased Meenu and neighbours to have on Ex.P3. This witness deposed that 2-4 months prior to the date of death of the deceased around Deewali, a quarrel had taken place between the appellant and deceased Meenu and the deceased informed him through a letter Ex.P1 that her in-laws are committing marpeet with her and they will not live her alive. The aforesaid letter was written in the handwriting of deceased. This fact is fully supported by brother of deceased PW1 Deepak Shukla (PW1). This witness deposed that about 25-30 days prior to the incident, the deceased was aborted and she was admitted in the Kamlaraja Hospital. After 8-10 days, appellant-accused left the deceased in the maternal house saying that he does not have any responsibility of the deceased. This witness further deposed that after treatment the deceased became alright. This witness deposed that around 06:00 pm at his house he received information that his daughter died and her corpus was taken into the Village Urva. On this, when he reached at the rented room of appellant-accused, he found that it was locked. Thereafter, he lodged report Ex.P5 at police station Madhoganj. The evidence of this witness is fully corroborated by brother and mother of deceased, namely, Deepak Shukla (PW1) and Munni Devi (PW8).

11. From the evidence of above witnesses, it is clear that on the date of incident, deceased was died in the room of accused-appellant and her corpus was taken to village Urva without giving information either to her parents or the police and the act of burning the corpus of the deceased in the cremation ground of Village Urva are sufficient and just to draw an inference against the accused that the death of deceased had occurred in an unnatural circumstances. It is clear from the record that prior to the incident, the deceased was being treated with cruelty for non-fulfillment of demand of articles by way of dowry by the appellant and she was subjected to cruelty. Even after compromise dated 28-01-1988, the appellant-accused kept demanding articles of dowry. A reading of Section 113-B of the Evidence Act shows that there must be material to show that soon before the death of woman, such woman was subjected to cruelty or harassment for or in connection with demand of dowry, then only a presumption can be drawn that a person has committed the dowry death of a woman. In the present case at hand, the appellant had burden of proof to rebut to this presumption but he has not produced any such satisfactory and circumstantial evidence whereby it can be considered that he is not responsible for this dowry death and the appellant has also not produced anything on record to dispel the theory of prosecution that there was no demand of dowry or articles made on his part.

12. It is true that on receiving an information regarding the death of deceased, Sukhdev Prasad Shukla (PW7) father of deceased lodged a report Ex.P5 forthwith but in this report nothing in regard to demand of dowry has been mentioned but one can imagine the agony of father whose daughter died and without informing him, the last rites of deceased were going to be performed. At this juncture, it is not expected from the father of deceased to write everything in his report/complaint. While filing the complaint/report, he intended that the dead body of his daughter should be recovered and thereafter postmortem should be conducted for a detailed enquiry. Only on this count, it cannot be assumed that aforesaid facts or evidence were not brought on record.

13. Besides the aforesaid evidence, it was the duty of the appellant-accused being husband of the deceased, to inform the parents of the deceased as well as police soon after her death, so that panchnama of the dead body of the deceased could be prepared and the postmortem could be conducted so that the real cause of her death could be ascertained. In this situation, an adverse inference can be drawn against the accused under Section 114 of the Evidence Act.

14. Prior to the death of the deceased, the appellant-accused used to commit marpeet with her and treat her with cruelty in regard to demand of dowry due to which she died within seven years of her marriage in an unnatural circumstances and in order to avoid criminal liability, the appellant/accused without any intimation to the parents performed the last rites and obstructed the police force who came there to recover the dead body and therefore, in the considered opinion of this Court the said act of the appellant was with intention to screening himself from the legal punishment. Accordingly, the learned trial Court has rightly convicted and sentenced the appellant under Section 201 of IPC.

15. In view of above discussion as well as totality of the facts and circumstances of the case and the material evidence available on record, this Court is of the considered opinion that the prosecution has succeeded in establishing the guilt of appellant for commission of offence under Sections 498-A, 304-B and 201 of IPC. The learned trial Court has not committed any error in passing the impugned judgment. Accordingly, the appeal filed by the appellant fails and is hereby dismissed. The impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 24th September, 2001 passed by Tenth Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track Court), Gwalior in Sessions Trial No. 47 of 1990 is affirmed.

16. Appellant is on bail, therefore, he be directed to surrender before the trial Court concerned immediately and serve out the remaining part of jail sentence awarded by the trial Court.

A copy of this judgment be sent to the concerning Jail as well as a copy of this judgment along with record be sent back to the Court below for necessary information.