SC upholds life sentence of mother-in-law

New Delhi, Feb 10 (UNI) The Supreme Court has upheld the life sentence of a mother-in-law accused of throwing a burning lamp on her daughter-in-law thereby causing her death.

Saira Bano alias Sultana Begam was found guilty of throwing a burning lamp on her daughter-in-law Halimabi on August 13, 1998 in village Beed, Maharashtra, for failing to get up early to offer namaz. The deceased sustained 57 per cent burns on her back, stomach and breast. She was taken to a hospital where she died the next day.

The trial court convicted Saira Bano on the basis of the Second Dying Declaration recorded by the Special Judicial Magistrate in which she blamed her mother-in-law for the incident. In her First Dying Declaration, the deceased had given a clean chit to Saira Bano denying the fact that she was deliberately burned.

When asked by the Magistrate the reason behind such a denial in the First Dying Declaration, the deceased answered that she was told by her mother-in-law to do so. She mustered courage to speak the truth only when her family members arrived at the hospital. The conviction was upheld by Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court on October 17, 2005.

The bench comprised Justices C K Thakkar and Lokeshwar Singh Panta. Justice Panta in the judgement dated February 8 observed "In our opinion criminal cases are decided on facts and on evidence rather than on case law and precedents. In this case there is enough evidence to show that even prior to the incident in question, the appellant used to beat the deceased and ill-treat her. It is in the light of the said facts that other evidence require to be considered. In our view, both the courts were right in relying upon the Second Dying Declaration of the deceased treating it as thorough disclosure of facts by the deceased Halimabi. For the forgoing reasons, in our opinion the appeal deserved to be dismissed and has been accordingly dismissed." Surprisingly there were no allegations of harassment for dowry against the appellant.

UNI