The Chhattisgarh High Court recently upheld the conviction of a man and his father in a dowry death case dating back 24 years but declined to send the 87-year-old father-in-law to prison, citing humanitarian considerations. The court observed that incarcerating someone of such advanced age would be inhumane and would undermine his dignity.
The matter was heard by Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas, who was considering appeals filed by a 55-year-old man and his elderly father against a trial court judgment delivered in 2005. While the conviction was maintained, the court granted relief to the father-in-law on humanitarian grounds.
According to the case record, the woman and her young daughter went missing in November 2002. The husband later lodged a police complaint claiming that his wife had left home with the child without informing anyone and could not be traced despite efforts to find them.
The woman’s father, however, alleged that when he asked his son-in-law to search for his daughter, the latter refused, and that she remained untraced for nearly two weeks. He also expressed suspicion that the husband and in-laws may have harmed her, Indian Express reported.
The complainant further alleged that, prior to her disappearance, the woman’s father-in-law had demanded Rs 12,000 from him and Rs 1 lakh from his elder son over the phone. He claimed that his daughter was subjected to cruelty over dowry demands and was driven to take her own life. It was also alleged that both the husband and father-in-law used to assault and harass her, often under the influence of alcohol, in connection with these demands.
In 2005, the trial court convicted both accused and sentenced them to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. Challenging this order, the husband and father-in-law approached the high court.
While the elderly man was spared imprisonment, the court directed the husband, who is currently out on bail, to surrender before the trial court within eight weeks to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Representing the accused, senior advocate N K Shukla argued that there was uncertainty surrounding the cause of the woman’s death and that it was unclear whether she had taken her own life or died in an accident.
He contended that the prosecution had failed to establish its case beyond a reasonable doubt, noting the absence of evidence to show that the accused had instigated suicide. He also submitted that the state had not proved that the woman was subjected to dowry-related harassment shortly before her death, a requirement to invoke the legal presumption applicable in dowry death cases involving deaths within seven years of marriage.