NEW DELHI: Unnatural death of a woman within seven years of marriage doesn’t automatically make it a dowry death even if relations between the couple were strained, Delhi high court has held. Discharging a husband accused of harassing and driving his wife to commit suicide, Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva noted that in such cases “there should be a basic ingredient of harassment or demand for or in relation to dowry in the allegations”.The court’s reasoning came on an appeal filed by the husband against the trial court’s decision to charge him under sections 498A and 304-B of the Indian Penal Code on the ground that his wife didn’t die a natural death within seven years of marriage.The high court set aside the order noting that the trial court “invoked statutory presumption solely on the ground that death has occurred otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of marriage” but ignored that “the basic ingredient of harassment or demand for or in relation to dowry is absent in the present case. Requirement of both Sections 304-B and 498-A is harassment or demand for dowry”.Elaborating, the court stressed that even for Section 304-B IPC to be valid, two things must be established by the prosecution. First it needs to be shown that death occurred “otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of marriage” and secondly “soon before her death, the deceased was subject to cruelty or harassment in connection with demand for dowry”.Justice Sachdeva cited the FIR lodged by the parents of the dead woman alleging that the mother-in-law of the victim was not happy with her, they would not take care of her, she was not given money to purchase things she liked and the husband would not talk to her some times. While the trial court concluded these allegations were enough to slap dowry death charges, HC underlined that “these allegations would not satisfy the requirements of Section 498A or 304B”.As per the FIR, neither the husband nor his family ever demanded dowry but used to harass the wife only because they did not like her. It was alleged that when she was unwell and her brother had gone to meet her, they would not give her money for treatment driving her to end her life.In her statement, the woman’s mother claimed that though the in-laws were taking care of her daughter but there was nobody in her house to take care of her in the hospital when she was pregnant. She complained that the woman complained to her that nobody in the matrimonial house would give any importance to what she had to say. But the husband highlighted the statement of his father-in-law to police that there was never any demand for dowry from the deceased or any harassment on account of dowry.

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