HC orders retrial of a closed dowry case
NEW DELHI: Holding that there had been a "gross miscarriage of justice" the Delhi high court has ordered re-trial in a case of dowry death and murder after it found the session's court acquitted the accused (a lawyer) without hearing the testimony of the father and brother of the dead woman.
"In the facts and circumstances of the present case, I have no manner of doubt that this case falls in the category of cases where it can be said that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice," a shocked Justice P K Bhasin observed while sending the case of alleged dowry death of a woman named Sushma and her young girl Tanu, back to the trial court.
The HC was even more perturbed to note that besides not taking the testimony of the father and brother of the victim, the trial court hastily went ahead and acquitted the accused persons even though Sushma's family had challenged before HC their non-examination as prosecution witnesses.
Sushma got married in 1999 and lived in a village Tauru in Gurgaon district of Haryana. As per the FIR, on December 2, 2004, it was reported that Sushma and her young daughter, Tanu, received serious burn injuries due to which both succumbed. While her husband and his family projected it as an accident, Sushma's father, Phool Chand lodged an FIR alleging dowry death. When police belatedly filed the case, it came for trial in the Gurgaon sessions court, prompting the victim's family to seek a transfer since accused was a practicing lawyer there. The Supreme Court then transferred the case to Delhi but curiously, the court permitted the Haryana government to filed its prosecutor rather than ask the Delhi government to appoint one. "The petitioners feel doubly hurt. Firstly, because they have lost two very dear ones due to their inability to fulfill dowry demands of the accused and their other family members, who have not even been arrested. Secondly, by the denial of justice to them by the sessions court in Delhi which refused to examine them as prosecution witnesses," Justice Bhasin noted, slamming the lower court for its approach to the case.
