Shindo Alias Sawinder Kaur And Anr vs State Of Punjab on 31 March, 2011
(31) The legislative primature of relieving the
prosecution of the rigour of the proof of the often
practically inaccessible recesses of life within the
guarded confines of a matrimonial home and of
replenishing the consequential void, by according a
presumption against the person charged, cannot be
overeased to gloss-over and condone its failure to
prove credibly, the basic facts enumerated in the
Sections involved, lest justice is the casualty.
(32) This Court while often dwelling on the scope and
purport of Section 304B of the Code and Section 113-
B of the Act have propounded that the presumption is
contingent on the fact that the prosecution first spell
out the ingredients of the offence of Section 304-B as
in Shindo Alias Sawinder Kaur and another Vs. State
of Punjab - (2011) 11 SCC 517 and echoed in Rajeev
Kumar Vs. State of Haryana - (2013) 16 SCC 640. In
the latter pronouncement, this Court propounded that
one of the essential ingredients of dowry death under
Section 304-B of the 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
113-B of the Act.