Delhi Court Acquits Man Of Dowry Death Charges, Citing Insufficient Evidence

Delhi’s Dwarka Court recently acquitted Satender Gautam of dowry death charges, citing doubts about the evidence presented. The court highlighted the distinction between “may be true” and “must be true” in its judgment. Additional Sessions Judge Sharad Gupta found that the prosecution did not provide convincing or cogent evidence to support the charges under Section 498A IPC (cruelty for dowry) and Section 304B IPC (dowry death).

“Prosecution case may be true but criminal jurisprudence says that prosecution case must be true. There is a long distance between “may be true” and “must be true,” the court said.

“It is a cardinal principle of criminal jurisprudence that an accused is presumed to be innocent. The burden lies on the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution is under a legal obligation to prove each and every ingredient of offence beyond any doubt, unless otherwise so provided by any statute. This general burden never shifts, it always rests on the prosecution,” ASJ Gupta said in the judgement passed on July 29.

The court found that the prosecution failed to provide evidence showing that the accused had encouraged or caused the deceased to commit suicide through any instigation, action, or omission. The prosecution’s claim was that a quarrel occurred between the deceased and the accused the day before her death. The court noted that disputes between spouses are common and part of daily life. It concluded that the mere argument between the accused and the deceased did not indicate that the accused intended to incite Poonam Sharma’s suicide.

“This is especially more so as there is nothing on record except the testimony of the deceased’s friend regarding the said fight and even she in her examination in chief stated that she thought it to be a normal quarrel between husband and wife. Hence, even the offence under Section 306 is not made out in the facts of the present case,” the court said.

Gautam faced charges after an FIR was lodged against him at Najafgarh police station in 2011. The FIR was based on a complaint by Kamlesh Devi, who claimed that her daughter had taken her own life due to harassment and dowry demands from Gautam. Advocate Pujya Kumar Singh contended that the accusations against Gautam were false and that he had been wrongly implicated in the case.

The accused claimed that following his wife’s death, he learned that her parents and other family members had been harassing her over phone calls regarding their inter-caste marriage. He also asserted that he was being falsely accused because the deceased’s family disapproved of his marriage to her.

Poonam Sharma, who committed suicide on November 26, 2011, had married Gautam in a love marriage in 2009 in Khurja, UP. At the time of her death, they were living in Najafgarh.