Allahabad HC grants bail to man accused of burning wife for not preparing food

The Allahabad High Court recently granted bail to a man accused of pouring kerosene oil upon his wife and setting her ablaze when she could not prepare the food due to the non-availability of vegetables in the house. 

The bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav observed that the main question which arose for consideration was as to whether the act of the accused would fall within the definition of 'murder' or it would be 'culpable homicide not amounting to murder'.

Court noted that the dying declaration of the deceased showed that when she could not prepare the food the accused lost his temper and the alleged incident happened. 

Court held, "It means that there was no premeditation for the applicant to commit such offence as alleged against him".

Court also took note of an admitted fact that the deceased was admitted to a hospital after the incident where she remained under treatment for 8 days. It was also an admitted fact that during the course of treatment, the deceased developed septicemia, which was the main cause of her death.

"It is, therefore, established that during the aforesaid period of 8 days, the injuries aggravated and worsened, as a result, she died due to septic shock," Court noted. 

Moreover, the court referred to the decisions in Maniben vs. State of Gujarat (2009) and Chirra Shivraj vs. State of Andhra Pradesh (2010), wherein under similar set of facts of the case, the accused persons had been convicted under Section 304 Part ­II IPC.

Therefore, taking into consideration the overall facts and circumstances and arguments put forth in the matter along with the principles laid down by the courts in the above-referred case laws, the single judge bench opined that the present matter was a fit case for grant of bail.

The case was lodged in the year 2013 under Sections 498­A, 302, 326, 323, 504, 506 of the IPC by the deceased woman's father who had alleged that though he had given sufficient dowry in his daughter's marriage, her in-laws were not happy with the same and they used to torture and harass his daughter.

He had claimed that after getting the information that his daughter had been burnt, when he reached the hospital and found his daughter struggling for her life, he had asked her about the incident and she had told him that she had been burned by her husband, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, mother-­in-­law and father-­in-­law by pouring kerosene oil upon her.

However, in the present bail plea, the accused husband's counsel had argued that even if it was assumed that the accused had committed the offence as alleged in the FIR as well as the dying declaration of the deceased, no offence under Section 302 of the IPC was made out against the accused.

He had contended that even in her dying declaration, the deceased had mentioned that the alleged incident happened as she could not prepare food therefore, maximum the present case could travel up to the limits of offence under Section 304 Part II of IPC for which the maximum punishment is 10 years imprisonment and the accused had already served more than 9 and ½ years in jail.

Case Title: Ganesh v. State of UP