State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi) vs Rajnish Kumar Singhal and Others Trilok Chand Singhal and Others Vs State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi)

Sunil Gaur, J.—The above captioned two revision petitions are directed against impugned order of 1st November, 2004, of the trial court discharging the accused for the offence u/s 306 of the IPC but calling upon them, to face trial for the offence u/s 498A of the IPC. State has come up in revision against the impugned order of discharge for the offence u/s 306 of the IPC and the second revision petition is by the accused persons i.e. parents-in-law and brother-in-law of the deceased, against the impugned order asking them to face trial for the offence u/s 498A of the IPC. Since both these petitions arise out of common impugned order, therefore, they were heard together and are being disposed of together by this common order.

Before proceeding further, the crux of the allegations leveled against the accused of this case, as reflected in the FIR of this case i.e. FIR No. 11 of 1996, under Sections 498A/406 of the IPC, registered at Police Station Rajouri Garden, Delhi (Annexure C), needs to be taken note of and they are as under:

The marriage in question is of the year 1996 and incident is of January, 1996. After the marriage in question, the deceased had come to know that her husband was a drug addict and this fact was not disclosed to the family of the deceased. For bringing less dowry, the deceased used to be harassed and tortured by the accused of this case. From time to time, several demands were made by the accused, and some of them were fulfilled, so that the marriage in question is not broken. For the last one year, prior to this incident, behaviour of the accused became cruel towards the deceased and the accused had started to abuse and beat the deceased frequently and the deceased was being taunted of having brought negligible dowry as compared to the dowry brought by the younger brother of the husband of the deceased.

During the investigation of this case, one suicide note is said to have been recovered from the house of the accused, which has a different story to tell. According to the suicide note (Annexure-D), the deceased was suffering from one disease or another and her health was not good and she was fed up with her life and instead of dying daily, she chose to end her life by consuming some poisonous substance. This suicide note gives a clean chit to the accused by stating that the husband of the deceased is nice and parents-in-law and brother-in-law of the deceased take more care than her parents. This suicide note (Annexure-D) was sent for comparison, first to CFSL, Delhi, who had certified that the specimen handwriting of the deceased matches with the handwriting on the suicide note (Annexure-D). This suicide note (Annexure-D) was also got compared from a private Handwriting Expert, whose report differed from the report of the CFSL, Delhi. This led to sending of the suicide note (Annexure-D) and the specimen handwriting of the deceased to Government Examiner of Questioned Documents of Government of India, at Shimla, who in its report had agreed with the report of the CFSL, Delhi.

During the course of hearing, it was brought to the notice of this Court that the suicide note (Annexure-D) is undated and the contents of the suicide note (Annexure-D) are in different ink and the signatures are in different ink and the admitted handwriting, which was sent to the Government Handwriting Examiners, was photocopy. These are matters which are required to be considered at trial and not at this stage. Whether the deceased was suffering from any ailment or what treatment she was undergoing, is not forthcoming. In any case, the authenticity of the suicide note (Annexure-D) has to be considered in the right perspective at trial and in the considered opinion of this Court, trial court has erred in prematurely prejudging it, before the trial could even begin.

Trial court in the impugned order has relied upon the two aforesaid handwriting reports of the government department and has preferred to ignore the report of the private Handwriting Expert and has chosen to give a clean chit to the accused of this case for the main offence u/s 306 of the IPC. Out of the aforesaid three reports, which report has to be believed and which one is to be discarded, is the prerogative of the trial court which has to be exercised after the evidence is recorded and such an exercise cannot be undertaken at the threshold of the trial. The trial court has relied upon a few decisions to indicate that the offence u/s 306 of the IPC is not made out. At the stage of ''Charge'', the prima facie case alone has to be seen and it is a settled legal position that even on grave suspicion, accused can be asked to face the trial. For taking this view, the apt observations made in " Onkar Nath Mishra and Others Vs. State (NCT of Delhi) and Another, can be referred with advantage and the same are as under:

It is trite that at the stage of framing of charge the Court is required to evaluate the material and documents on record with a view to finding out if the facts emerging there from, taken at their face value, disclosed the existence of all the ingredients Constituting the alleged offence. At that stage, the Court is not expected to go deep into the probative value of the material on record. What needs to be considered is whether there is a ground for presuming that the offence has been committed and not a ground for convicting the accused has been made out. At that stage, even strong suspicion founded on material which leads the Court to form a presumptive opinion as to the existence of the factual ingredients Constituting the offence alleged would justify the framing of charge against the accused in respect of the commission of that offence.

The contention of learned Senior counsel for the accused that handwriting reports of two government agencies have been rightly preferred by the trial Court, over and above report of private hand writing expert, does not appeal to me, for the reason that evidentiary value of suicide note (Annexure-D) is yet to be established, in view of the contradictory reports. Much had been said by learned Senior counsel for the accused regarding allegations leveled being vague but not much ought be said on this aspect as clearly FIR is not supposed to be an encyclopedia and facts can be always elaborated.

In the opinion of this Court, a prima facie case is made out requiring trial in this case, in as much as necessitating suicide note being proved on record and thereafter only, it can be considered viz-a-viz evidence of the family of the deceased. Impugned order, discharging the accused for the offence u/s 306 of the IPC, is clearly unsustainable and is accordingly set aside to this extent only. So far as the petition of the accused against the impugned order requiring accused to face the trial for the offence u/s 498A of the IPC, is concerned, the nature of allegations made in the FIR, as referred to above are prima facie sufficient to sustain the impugned order in this regard. The resultant effect of the aforesaid narration is that the revision of the State succeeds whereas of the accused fails.

Interim order stands vacated. Trial court record be sent back forthwith for being proceeded in accordance with the law.

Both these petitions and pending applications are accordingly disposed of while making it clear that anything stated herein shall have no reflection on the merits of this case at trial.