Court reject bail of mother-in-law in dowry death case
JKUT (Jammu), November-30-2021-( JNF):- Additional Sessions Judge Kathua Kamlesh Pandit rejected the bail application of one Shankuntla Devi mother-in-law of deceased Anju Devi in dowry death case.
According to the police case, on 21-10-2021 Police Station Rajbagh received information that one lady namely Anju Devi(deceased) was under medical treatment at GMC Kathua after consuming some poisonous substance resulting into death. As a death was caused under suspicious circumstances therefore proceedings under section 174 Cr.P.C were initiated at Police Station Rajbagh and inquiry was entrusted to ASI Ranbir Singh. In this respect he conducted the investigation and took the dead body into possession , prepared the seizure memo and got the postmortem of the deceased done. Statements of the father,mother, brother and sister of the deceased were recorded under section 175 cr.p.c from where it transpires that the deceased committed suicide as the accused person alongwith her son (co-accused) were demanded repeatedly dowry from her and were treating her with cruelty which was revealed by the deceased to her parents on 20-10-2021 on phone and thereafter on 21-10¬2021 she committed suicide. It has been further stated that the death of the deceased was caused at 2.25 hours but her husband informed the parents of the deceased after 6 hours. Consequently the inquest proceedings were converted into the FIR NO. .218/2021 for commission of offence under section 304-B IPC and investigation is thereafter in progress. . One of the accused persons Surinder Pal has been arrested and present accused herein has given slip to Investigating Agency.
While rejecting the bail application, Additional Sessions Judge Kathua Kamlesh Pandit after hearing both the sides observed that accused is prima facie involved in serious offence of dowry death. In this case death of a young lady has occurred because of suicide as she has fallen prey to the dowry demand of the accused /applicant herein .This court is very much conscious that liberty of an individual is precious and is to be zealously protected by courts. Nonetheless, such protection cannot be absolute in other situations. The valuable right of liberty of an individual and interest of the society in general has to be balanced, more so, liberty of a person accused of an offence would depend upon the exigency of the case. It is true that the provision of anticipatory bail is intended to save innocent persons from humiliation and harassment by preventing their detention in custody. The provision is not made for a person against whom there is accusation of serious nature and there is some material to support such accusation. The powers are to be sparingly used and should be invoked for furtherance of ends of justice and to save innocent persons having been harassed or humiliated.
