Supreme Court: In cases involving crimes against women, courts are expected to be sensitive

The Supreme Court said this when rejecting an appeal brought by a man and his mother against his conviction for harshly treating his wife, who later died from poisoning, adding that courts are required to be sensitive in situations involving crime against women.

The supreme court said that it is anticipated that courts would not let offenders to escape due to procedural irregularities, superficial investigations, or small gaps in the evidence since doing so would completely demoralize the victims and result in the crime remaining unpunished.

“The courts are expected to be sensitive in cases involving crime against women,” a panel of Justices J. B. Pardiwala and Prashant Kumar Mishra said in their ruling on Friday.

The two prisoners’ appeals against a March 2014 Uttarakhand High Court ruling were the subject of the judgment.

The husband and mother-in-law of the deceased were found guilty in the 2007 case, and the supreme court affirmed that decision.

The mother-in-law of the deceased was found guilty of the offense under Section 498-A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) of the Indian Penal Code, while the deceased’s husband, Balvir Singh, was found guilty for offenses under Sections 302 (murder) and 498-A (subjecting a married woman to cruelty).

The victim wed Singh in December 1997, according to the supreme court. Her father had submitted a request to a magistrate court in June 2007 asking for permission to instruct the police to file a FIR in relation to the death of his daughter under questionable circumstances in May 2007.

Later, the woman’s husband and mother-in-law were detained after a FIR was filed in the case.

Both of them maintained their innocence throughout the trial and argued they were a part of a fabrication.

Both of them sought the high court after the trial court found them guilty, and the court upheld their verdict.

The highest court said that poisoning was the cause of death in its decision.

“We completely rule out the theory of suicide as sought to be put forward on behalf of the appellants,” the court said.

It also addressed the question of whether Section 106 of the Evidence Act, which deals with the burden of establishing fact, notably within knowledge, is applicable.

The bench said that it is obvious that the court should use Section 106 of the Evidence Act in criminal matters with care and caution, citing a number of prior Supreme Court decisions.

The statement that it does not apply to criminal matters is untrue. The rules included in Section 106 of the Evidence Act do not alter in any way the general norm that governs criminal proceedings in this nation, which states that the burden of proof is with the prosecution to establish the guilt of the accused.

According to the supreme court, Section 106 of the Act cannot be utilized to make up for the prosecution’s failure to provide evidence of circumstances that indicate to the accused’s guilt.

“This section cannot be used to support a conviction unless the prosecution has discharged the onus by proving all the elements necessary to establish the offence,” it said.

The court said, “When facts are peculiarly within the knowledge of the accused, the burden is on him to present evidence of such facts, whether the proposition is an affirmative or a negative one” .

According to the case’s facts, the bench stated that it had been proven to the court’s satisfaction that the deceased was with her husband when something happened to her health. In such a situation, the husband would have been the only one to know what had happened to her up until she was with him.

“We take notice of the fact that the appellant-convict (husband) has not explained in any manner as to what had actually happened to his wife more particularly when it is not in dispute that the appellant-convict was in the company of his wife, that is, deceased,” it said.

However, the court only gave the victim’s mother-in-law the time she had previously served.

The trial court gave her a two and a half year jail sentence.