High Court reverses Trial Court order, Awards Seven-year Jail for Dowry Death

The Telangana HC has reversed an acquittal order of a Medak trial court by convicting a man & his parents in a dowry death case & awarding them a seven-year jail sentence.

The court slapped Rs 20,000 penalty on each of the three convicts & also ordered them to pay Rs 50,000 compensation to the deceased woman’s family.

The case pertains to the death of 20-year-old Bhagyalakshmi of severe burns in her in-laws’ house in Narsapur on September 15, 2011. The victim was pregnant at the time of her death.

Though Narsapur police arrested husband Duddala Santhosh, his mother Balamani & father Narasimhulu, the trio came out of jail after they were acquitted of dowry harassment charges by the trial court on Jan 23, 2013. Bhagyalakshmi had married Santhosh on May 16, 2010.

A bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan & Justice A Abhishek Reddy reversed the trial court’s order after hearing an appeal of Talari Krishna, brother of the deceased.

Krishna said his sister faced severe harassment by Santosh & his parents seeking additional dowry. Conciliatory efforts were made by Krishna’s parents & maternal uncle to reach out to Santosh & his parents with a promise to give extra gold. But, Bhagyalakshmi died by then.

Charging the in-laws with killing his sister, Krishna filed a police complaint. The trial court, however, did not take any of the evidence placed before it into consideration & relied on minor discrepancies in the statements of Bhagyalakshmi’s parents & maternal uncle & acquitted Santhosh & his parents.

The HC bench, in its order, said the trial court had failed to shift the burden of the proof to the accused under section 113-B of the Evidence Act. “It has failed to appreciate the fact that the accused have not disproved the facts established by the prosecution. The trial court has failed to draw a mandatory presumption under the law,” the bench said.

Making it clear that there were compelling reasons for it to interfere in the trial court order which was unreasonable, the bench recalled the evidence available on record to prove the dowry harassment & concluded that the woman’s death was closely related to it.

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