Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

(a) that this was a serious case of a bride burning on account of dowry demand not satisfied by the deceased-wife;

(b) That the death of Rasila had taken place within four weeks of her marriage;

(c) That too at the house of her in-laws;

(d) That the police surprisingly for whatever reasons did not arrest the respondent. Not only that but the police appears to have given more than sufficient time to the respondent to move the learned Sessions Judge for obtaining anticipatory bail;

(e) That immediate investigation in such type of cases depending upon the circumstantial evidence is inevitably must and yet the respondent was not arrested to the detriment of prosecution interest;

Now, of course, in reply to this decision of the Supreme Court, Mr. J.G. Shah submitted that the Supreme Court can not be said to have laid down any absolute proposition of law or a strait-jacket formula the in no case of bride burning and dowry deaths, the anticipatory bail cannot be granted. On principle, there indeed can not be any dispute about this submission on Mr. J. G. Shah. In fact, on this point, both Mr. A. D. Shah, the learned advocate for the petitioner and Mr. P.S. Chapaneri, the learned A.P.P. have joined the issue with Mr. J.G. Shah. As a matter of fact, Mr. A.D. Shah has rightly pointed out that only few weeks ago, in one of such matters, where he appeared for the accused-husband, charged with (dowry) murder of his wife, in Misc. Criminal Application No. 1710/91, this court (Coram : K.J. Vaidya J.) had granted anticipatory bail on 11-7-1991. Few relevant distinguishing facts and circumstances of that case were like this -- "The accused Gautam E. Ruparel, an Electrical Engineer with Gujarat Electricity Board and on deputation as Assistant Engineer, Narmada Project, was in love with one Hina, working at Research Centre, M.S. University, Baroda, and got married somewhere in November, 1990. On 11-2-1991, Hina received severe burns at her residence and was removed to the hospital. Immediately her parents were informed about the same. No grievance of any ill-treatment, cruelty, demand for dowry etc. were made by the parents of the deceased Hina. Ultimately, in the early hours of 12-2-1991, Hina succumbed to her burns injuries and passed away. Thereafter, Hariprasad father of the deceased Hina suddenly desiring to have all belongings of her as well as her service benefits accrued to her, asked the accused-husband to part with the same, and for that purpose, he prepared a draft writing to be executed by the accused Gautam Ruparel. Nirav -- the brother of Hina purchased the stamp paper in February, 1991 in his name and the father-Hariprasad accordingly handed over the drafted writing along with the blank stamp paper to Gautam Ruparel. As Gautam Ruparel did not yield to the said demand of Hariprasad, Hariprasad filed a complaint against Gautam Ruparel Under Section 302, 306, 498-A and 201 of IPC." Thus, it can be seen that the accused Gautam Ruparel was granted anticipatory bail because the accusation levelled against him by Hariprasad the father of the deceased Hina did not stem from motives of furthering the ends of justice, but rather it stemmed from the ulterior motive of taking back some belongings and money of the deceased Hina from the accused-husband. Now coming to the facts and circumstances of the present case, at this stage it cannot be said that the complaint filed by the mother of the decaused Resila stemmed from any such ulterior motive of maliciously harassing or tarnishing the image of the respondent. As a matter of fact, the complaint against the respondent here appears to be genuine one and filed with the only motive of furthering the ends of justice. Further in this case, since the investigation was in progress facts of the case squarely fell within the purview of the Supreme Court decision reported in the case of Samundarsing (1987 Cri LJ 705) (Supra). In this view of the matter, the learned Judge committed an obvious error in granting anticipatory bail to the accused in this bride burning case of dowry death.

11-1. The duties of the police and the court to exercise extreme vigilance and circumspection in the matter of arrest and release of accused on bail :-- It is a matter of serious concern for anybody when one finds the investigating agency and sometimes the court of law also being criticised in remaining relaxed and not appreciating the seriousness and magnitude of the problems of atrocities on women when the accused are not immediately apprehended or lightly released on anticipatory bail. In cases of bride burning and dowry deaths, etc. the investigating agency as well as the courts deciding the bail applications, cannot afford to be insensitive and indollent to alarmingly increase stunning rate of bride burning, dowry deaths etc. which has virtually made the social consciousness restless dumb founded. Any day you just open the newspaper and hardly one comes across a single day when no such news regarding the atrocities on women, dowry death etc. etc. are not reported. In this regard, Mr. A.D. Shah and Mr. Chapaneri, the learned A.P.P. have placed before this court an issue of "illustrated Weekly of India" dated 3rd August, 1991, wherein the learned author Shri Gautam Mehta has vividly picturised the burning problem of the atrocities on women by setting forth the statistics for the year 1989, 1990 and up to 31st July 1991 in his informative article under the title 'Trial by Fire'. Both the learned advocates with the permission of the court have drawn the attention to the relevant paragraphs of the said article, which, with the due courtesy of the esteemed magazine, for the benefit of all, are reproduced as under. In pungently prefaced introductory note of the said article, it is observed :--

The records of the hospitals in Ahmedabad and the postmortem centres in other parts of the State confirm these mind-boggling statistics. At least three female corpses with severe burns are received daily at the Civil Hospital, while the V.S. Hospital receives at least one. The records for 1986-87 reveal that at the B. J. Medical College, of the nearly 3,800 bodies received, 1.520 were females who had died of burns. At the N.H.L. Municipal Medical College, among the 1,600 bodies received, 490 were female victims of burns. If one compares these figures with recent data, one realises the intensity of the rising tide of bride-burning in Gujarat over the past five years.