LAWS(KAR)-2010-4-131

STATE BY KUMSI POLICE Vs. NAGARAJA

Decided On April 23, 2010
STATE BY KUMSI POLICE Appellant
V/S
NAGARAJA Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Being aggrieved by the judgment dated 2.1.2004 passed in S.C. No. 48 of 2001 by the Additional Sessions Judge, Shimoga acquitting the respondents, of the offences under Sections 498A and 306 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the State has come up in this appeal.

(2.) The case of the prosecution is that one Jayanthamma, is the wife of respondent 1. The marriage having taken place about four years prior to incident. Respondent 2 is sis-ter of respondent 1, being aggrieved by the suspicion made by the accused persons about the conduct of the deceased, the de-ceased was feeling sad and in this connec-tion she has mentioned that the accused were harassing her and ill treating her. Deceased was complaining that the accused were ordering her not to wear Chudidhar and not to appear in public and not to use the language which is used to be spoken by Muslim community and because of this so-cial conduct of the deceased, the accused were abusing her. It is alleged that on 6.3.2000 in the residence of the accused, Jayanthamma committed suicide by con-suming poison and thereby accused respon-dents were charge-sheeted under Sections 498A and 306 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 for having abetted the death of the deceased.

(3.) The complaint has been lodged by none other than the husband of the deceased Nagarajappa on 6.3.2000 and the police at the first instance registered a UDR case. PW10 G.S. Bhat, is Tahsildar of Bhadra-vathi, who conducted the inquest proceed-ings of the deceased and recorded the state-ment of the complainant and observed in column (17) of the inquest proceedings (Ex. P5) that the deceased committed suicide being unable to tolerate the harassment by husband and his sister. However, PW11 in the course of enquiry recorded the state-ments and referring to the UDR papers con-verted the UDR into a crime and com-menced investigation and examined the con-cerned witness and found that a charge-sheet could be filed and accordingly he filed the charge-sheet against the respondents.