The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that a husband who is convicted of murdering his wife cannot claim the dowry articles given at the time of their marriage. This judgment was passed under the provisions of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
The ruling was made by Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur while hearing an appeal by the convicted husband. He had challenged a 2015 order from the Fazilka Additional Sessions Judge, which directed that the stridhan (the dowry, including gold and other marriage gifts) should be handed over to the father of the deceased woman.
Previously, the Fazilka Sessions Court, in its 2014 judgment, had found the husband guilty under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for killing his wife and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The husband’s lawyer argued that the order was wrong. He claimed that “stridhan” means a woman’s personal property, and the Court should not have ordered it to be given to her father. However, the State argued that all items were given by the complainant (the woman’s father) during the marriage and legally belonged to his daughter.
The High Court noted that the husband had not provided any proof showing that he owned the dowry articles. It also rejected his argument based on Section 15(1) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, saying that by referencing this section, he had indirectly accepted that the articles did not belong to him.
The Court referred to Section 6(3) of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, which states that if a woman dies within seven years of marriage, and the death is not natural, the dowry must be handed over to her parents, especially if she has no children.
The Court also cited two earlier cases — Balbir Singh and Mallesha — in which even if the husband was acquitted, the dowry was still given to the deceased woman’s family. In the current case, the husband has been convicted under Section 302 IPC for murder, which made the order even more justified.
Therefore, the High Court dismissed the appeal and confirmed that the dowry articles rightly belong to the deceased woman’s family.
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