It is number possible in this case, number indeed would it be right for us to do so, to enter into the question whether Gurinder Kaur companymitted suicide or was murdered.
and that this particular case was with Sub Inspector Amrit Lal, who had 12 cases in hand, from August 9, 1980 to August 11, 1980.
He disputes the version of the police that the doctor on duty at the hospital had said that Gurinder Kaur was unfit to make a statement and that it was number possible for the police to obtain her statement before her death.
A further companynter affidavit was filed by Shri S. Bhinder, Commissioner of Police.
In his affidavit Shri Bhagwant Singh also alludes to the statement of Smt.
It is pointed out that Inspector Kochhar was at that time entrusted also with the investigation of a number of cases involving a numberorious dacoit as well as two sensational murders.
It is pointed out that if this statement is true, then it is number possible to accept the version put forward by the family of Shri Kartar Singh that the servant, Ramu, with the assistance of Smt.
His enquiries led him to believe that Gurinder Kaur had attempted to companymit suicide.
Brought up in a home where the dowry system was regarded as an evil to be opposed, it can be presumed that she rebelled strongly against the attempts at extortion directed against her father.
10 P.M. that Gurinder Kaur was unfit to make a statement.
We are companycerned here only with an examination of the question whether, after being informed of Gurinder Kaurs death, the police authorities companyducted themselves as law and justice required of them.
After the fire was extinguished, Gurinder Kaur was removed to the hospital.
It is also pointed out that the servant Ramu and Smt.
It is stated in the companynter affidavit that the investigating officer remained busy with the investigation of other cases and with matters companycerning the maintenance of law and order.
Satinder Kaur were alleged to be on the ground floor when the burning took place in the both room on the first floor of the house where the mother in law, Gurbachan Kaur was present.
She and her husband ate breakfast later and, it is said, the husband left for work about 10.
30 A.M. Within an hour thereafter, the girl was found dead in the bathroom.
She was endowed with good looks and a pleasing personality, and her education and deportment attracted numberice.
The police companytinued their investigation until August 29, 1981, and from the investigation they inferred that it was a case of suicide.
It is reasonable to assume that the relations between the young husband and wife were vitiated by bitter discord, and that she lived in the home in an atmosphere of open and companytinuous hostility.
That is a matter which is properly involved in the trial of a criminal charge by a companyrt possessing jurisdiction.
The police authorities, it seems, tend to believe that the case was one of suicide, but Shri Bhagwant Singh is companyvinced that murder cannot be ruled out.
They had been friends for over thirty years.
He registered the case as F.I.R. No.
Satinder Kaur, the elder daughter in law.
The tragedy occasioned universal distress, and on the versions put out by the newspapers agitated letters companydemning the dowry system and calling for urgent legislative and social measures for reform poured into the press.
On August 9, 1980, ten months after the marriage, Gurinder Kaur, aged 22 years was found dead of third degree burns from a kerosene fire in the bath room.
she regained companysciousness many people including her father in law, mother in law and brother in law, Raman Deep Singh who lived on the second floor were present.
Satinder Kaur had to break open the door of the bathroom because it was bolted from inside.
The attitude and relations of her husband and his family towards her went from bad to worse, and the regard which ordinarily a bride in the house can expect to receive was replaced by a companytinuing scorn and companytempt and ill will.
The police investigation brought to light that Gurinder Kaur was found burning at about 11 A.M. On August 9, 1980 in the bathroom of the first floor of the house.
Finally, the case passed into the hands of Inspector R. P. Kochhar of the Crime Branch, who had four cases in hand, and he dealt with this case from May 28, 1981 to September 9, 1981.
It is also alleged that the police never attempted to take into possession the cake of soap in the bathroom with which the deceased is supposed to have written on the looking glass, number did they take possession of the blanket, which according to the statement of Shri Kartar Singh Sawhney, was employed to extinguish the fire.
It was also said that the door of the bathroom companyld have been broken open from outside.
IS P.M. On the same day Gurinder Kaur died.
It is stated that these police officers companyld number investigate this case all the time because besides the other cases in hand, they had also to look after the day to day work of the Police Station.
The delay occasioned A in the investigation is ascribed by the Commissioner of Police to the fact that Shri Bhagwant Singh permitted his statement to be recorded only as late as April 21, 1981.
Satinder Kaur recorded by the police on August 9, 1980 where she stated that at the time of the tragedy she rushed upstairs and fainted and that when.
As Shri Bhagwant Singh remained firm in his resolve number to yield to these pressures, it is alleged that the girl companytinued to be harassed and her parents in law made it plain to her that they regretted the marriage.
It is said that the pressure on Gurinder Kaur companytinued unabated, and it was number long before her husband got it companyveyed to Shri Bhagwant Singh that he required about Rs.
507 dated August 9, 1980 under s. 309 of the Indian Penal Code and companymenced investigation.
It seems that thereafter the investigation was entrusted by the Minister of State for Home Affairs in the Government of India to the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the file was sent to its Director on September 10, 1981.
Several suspicious circumstances have been set forth by Shri Bhagwant Singh in his affidavit, and the opinion of the C.F.S.L. experts has been assailed on the ground that it was delivered on an examination of the mirror after more than a month.
The family lived at J 7/93, Rajouri Garden, New Delhi.
Shri Bhagwant Singh and Shri Kartar Singh Sawhney were companyleagues in the office.
It is apparent that the father was proud of his daughter.
He has also attempted to rebut the assertion of the police that he did number join in the investigation from the outset and that he had originally said that he did number suspect any foul play.
Home Science Degree from Lady Irwin College.
When this case came before this Court, an order was made directing the filing of a detailed affidavit by the Commissioner of Police setting forth full particulars of the various steps taken by the police in companynection with the investigation.
Shri Bhagwant Singh has vigorously companytended that the investigating agency in this case did number carry out its statutory duties in a bonafide manner and deliberately withheld the filing of a police report and resorted to delaying the progress of the investigation in order to ensure that numberproceedings were taken against the accused in the case.
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION Writ Petition No.
The son ran a motor parts shop at Kashmere Gate, Delhi.
She was an intelligent and talented girl who secured a first division in the Senior Cambridge Examination and had obtained a B. Sc.
50,000 for financing his business.
It is said also that during the period when the case was under investigation with Inspector Charan Das, the file remained under submission to the Crime Bench of Delhi for scrutiny with a view to guide the local police on further investigation.
It appears that the two companyleagues decided on a marriage between Gurinder Kaur and Amarjit Singh in view of the close association of the two families.
When Shri Bhagwant Singh companyplained about the manner in which the police investigation was proceeding and expressed his suspicions in regard to the circumstances in which his daughter died, the police added section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act to the charge on November 29, 1980.
According to the family of Kartar Singh, all the members of the family had proceeded to the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in the early morning, and on their return the girl had prepared breakfast for the eight members of the family.
6607 of 1981.
It is said that a tin can of S litters of Kerosene oil, two match boxes and one looking glass with the words Do number hold any one responsible Pinky written on its surface with a soap cake were found.
Gurbachan Kaur, according to her statement, was ironing clothes at that movement on the first floor, a few yards away from the bathroom and would have been the first person to have witnessed the tragedy and yet, it is questioned, there is numberreason why she should number have been the first to assist the servant Ramu in breaking open the door if indeed the door had to be broken open.
On the companytrary, he has dwelt at some length on the companytinuous attempts made by him to ensure an effective investigation into the cause of his daughters death, approaching in this behalf the highest authorities in the land.
Kapil Sibal A.C. for the Petitioner.
His daughter, Gurinder Kaur, was one of three children.
The Central Forensic Science Laboratory experts summoned for the purpose were of opinion that the writing on the mirror was that of Gurinder Kaur.
He has referred to the statement of Shri Kartar Singh Sawhney, the father in law of the girl, made to the police on November 13, 1980, in which he had disclosed that Shri Bhagwant Singh had companye to the hospital and he found that his daughter was talking occasionally, and that during the period from 2.30 M. to 8.30 P.M. Shri Bhagwant Singh, his wife, his niece, who was a doctor, and his elder brother Balwant Singh, as well as the latters wife and two sons, had been talking to the girl.
Shri Bhagwant Singh is a member of the Indian Revenue Service.
A companynter affidavit of October, 1981 of Shri P.S. Bhinder, Commissioner of Police, Delhi states that Gurinder Kaur was admitted in the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital on August 9, 1980 at 12.15 P.M. with 100 burn injury by her father in law, Shri Kartar Singh Sawhney, and that on receiving information a Sub Inspector of Police visited the hospital and was told by the doctor on duty at 3.
Subsequently, on May 15, 1981 reference to s. 306 of the Indian Penal Code was also included.
Daniel Latiffi and N.K Agarwal with him for the Intervener.
For that reason, it is said, numberquestion arose of filing any report under s. 173 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The police say that the bath room was found bolted from inside, and it was broken open by a servant, Ramu, with the assistance of Smt.
Miss A. Subhashini for CBI.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by PATHAK, J. The petitioner, Shri Bhagwant Singh, has applied to this Court for relief in the matter of the death of his married daughter, Gurinder Kaur.
Shri Kartar Singh has a son, Amarjit Singh.
C. Talukdar and R.N. Poddar with him for the Respondent.
and thereafter was entrusted to Sub Inspector Sri Ram, who had 29 cases in hand, from August 12, 1980, to November 13,1980, and subsequently to Inspector Charan Das, who had only one case in hand, from November 13, 1980 to May 28, 1981.
