Dowry takes away thousands of lives, don’t mechanically provide bail for such deaths: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked high courts to exercise caution while granting bail to accused in dowry death cases, stressing that social evils continue to claim the lives of thousands of women.The Patna High Court has canceled its order granting bail to an accused husband whose wife was murdered within a year and a half of their marriage, allegedly because her parents could not meet the dowry demand. A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and Vijay Bishnoi expressed deep concern over the “seemingly mechanical approach taken by the High Court to provide bail in dowry death cases”.Lawyers Samir Ali Khan and Rajneesh Kumar, appearing for the Bihar government and the mother of the deceased respectively, argued that the Patna High Court erred in granting bail even though the accused had been detained for only one-and-a-half years. They said the high court did not assign any special ground to provide relief to the man accused of the heinous crime.The court termed the High Court’s order as “totally untenable” and said, “In a very serious crime like dowry death, the High Court should be very careful in exercising its discretion… The High Court has ignored many important aspects of the matter, particularly the number of injuries sustained on the deceased as indicated by the post-mortem report and the presumption of guilt under Section 114 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.”Judges, who have heard numerous cases of dowry harassment in court, many involving murder or suicide, said: “Dowry death is indeed a great disgrace, a major social evil and a gross violation of human rights and dignity.“Despite legal prohibitions, the practice has resulted in thousands of women dying unnaturally, often as a result of murder or (in fact they) being driven to suicide due to greedy demands for money or valuables from the groom’s family. Dowry deaths are a grave stain on society,” the bench said.When the accused husband’s lawyer Santosh Kumar Mishra argued that the deceased was insane and committed suicide by jumping from the sixth floor of an apartment building, the judge said the accused would have to prove this claim during the trial.It said the high court should reject the bail plea as the trial was ongoing. The judge stayed the bail order and directed the accused to surrender to jail authorities within a week.