Dowry Death In India

In India, the marriage of Hindus requires the transfer of property in the name of the Bridegroom, since ancient times. This is known as dowry and was earlier thought to be a religious duty or religious obligation. This obligation has now turned into a serious offence in India. Because now-a-days dowry is demanded from the side of the bridegroom, for which the bride is even tortured and killed in some instances.

There are many cases involving deaths and domestic violence, of and upon the female spouse due to dowry demand by the in-laws. This has alarmed the legislators and a need for legislation criminalising dowry and offences due to dowry arouse in India. In the Indian Penal Code, 1860 section 498A deals with cruelty in any form upon the wife by the husband himself or any relative of the husband is punishable by law and section 304B dealing with dowry death govern such instances and cases. Apart from this there are also other statutes dealing with this aspect of crime, such as Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

In India dowry death cases are considered to be grave offence and hence the presumption of guilt is followed in such cases. That is, the accused is presumed to be guilty and the standard of burden of proof on the accused is to prove his innocence beyond reasonable doubt and the prosecution is just required to discharge the initial burden by creating a reasonable suspicion in the minds of the judges which is known as Preponderance of Probabilities. This has been explicitly decided by the court in the case of Sher Singh Pratap v. State of Haryana by virtue of S. 304B of IPC, 1860 and S. 113B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

One of the essential ingredients of dowry death to attract section 304B of IPC is that the principle of ‘soon before death’ must be proved. This principle states that the cruelty caused for dowry must be done soon before the death of the wife, then the accused will be liable for dowry death under section 304B of IPC. This has been decided in the case of Bajinath & Ors. v. State of Madhya Pradesh.Further in the case of Kans Raj v. State of Punjab & Ors. it has been decided that ‘soon before death’ implies that the interval should not be too long between the time of making the statement and the death. The time must be reasonable as depending upon the facts and circumstances of the case. Thus, the proximate and live link between the effect of cruelty based on dowry demand and the consequential death is required to be proved by the prosecution. In this way the Indian law administration is even trying to protect the innocent who is wrongfully accused of any such kind of dowry death cases as well as punishing the person who commits such grave offences.