Bombay High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Sarang V. Kotwal, J., dismissed an appeal concerning the aspect of cruelty being taken on a mere submission that the deceased was ill-treated as the deceased failed to cook properly.
The present case deals with a very interesting factual matrix and submissions being made by the prosecution. The accused in the present case was charged under Sections 498A and 306 read with Section 34 of IPC, for which the learned judge had acquitted all the accused persons but further the State of Maharashtra had preferred an appeal against the same.
The submissions of the prosecution had two primary folds, which were: Accused being in an illicit relationship with his sister-in-law and deceased facing ill treatment due to failure to cook properly; and based on these grounds Nanda, i.e. the deceased had consumed poison.
Therefore, the High Court while concluding its judgment stated that the prosecution failed to prove the illicit relationship of the accused by placing no evidence on record. Also for the other allegation of ‘not cooking-properly’, the Court stated that “Telling to cook properly or to do household work properly, by itself, would not mean that a person was ill-treated.” No further evidence was placed to show ill-treatment which inclined the Court to not dismiss the Appeal. [State of Maharashtra v. Vijay Dhondiram Shinde,2018 SCC OnLine Bom 2047, decided on 01-08-2018]