High Court

Prayagraj, June 28 (HS). The Allahabad High Court recently expressed its disapproval of the routine and mechanical addition of Section 302 (murder) of the IPC by trial court judges in the state in cases related to dowry deaths and dowry-related inhumane behaviour without any concrete material.

A bench of Justices Rahul Chaturvedi and Mohammad Azhar Hussain Idrisi, while passing the order on several appeals filed by Ram Milan Bunkar, Thana Narhat, District Lalitpur and others, said that by mechanically adding the charge of murder (Section 302 of IPC) in cases of dowry death and dowry related inhuman behaviour, the situation is becoming “more grave and serious”.

“Charges are framed on the basis of the nature of evidence collected during investigation and not just out of thin air or arbitrarily. In fact, our trial courts keep adding Section 302 IPC as an alternative charge without any substantial material, either in contravention of the dictates of law or under some misconception. This will lead to bad consequences for the accused-appellant,” the court said.

The court clarified that the proper course is for the courts to find that the evidence collected during the investigation, whether direct or circumstantial, prima facie supports or justifies the addition of the charge under Section 302 IPC, and only then should the trial judge frame a charge of murder.

The high court said that in such a situation, the charge under section 302 IPC would be the main charge and not the alternative charge, as was wrongly held by the trial court in the state while framing the charge of dowry death. The court clarified that “if the main charge of murder against the accused is not proved in the trial, the court will only look at the evidence to determine whether the alternative charge of dowry death under section 304B IPC is established or not.”

The high court said, “The trial court is framing charges mechanically, without paying any heed to the fact that there is not even a shred of evidence to justify the addition of Section 302 IPC in pursuance of the judgment passed in the case of Rajbeer.”

The Court also clarified that if during the trial, the Court finds that there is no direct or circumstantial evidence to establish that the death was homicidal in nature, then in such a situation, if the ingredients under Section 304B IPC are available, the trial Court should proceed under the said provision.

In view of this, the Court set aside all the judgments allowing the appeal and directed that all the cases should be reheard. The Court directed that all the cases be remanded back to the respective Sessions Courts for retrial after reframing the “charges” levelled against the accused-appellants strictly following the ratio laid down in Jaswinder Saini case and Vijay Pal Singh & Ors. v. State of Uttarakhand (2014) and be heard on a day-to-day basis and concluded by December 31, 2024 without granting any undue adjournment to any of the parties.