The Supreme Court has decided to examine the case of a Delhi youth and his father, booked under the Dowry Prohibition Act in 2004 for demanding `4 lakh towards conduct of the marriage. What surprised the court were the peculiar facts of the case where the demand for alleged dowry was made while talks of marriage were still on. Interestingly, the boy never met the girl as even the engagement did not take place.
The bench headed by Justice KS Radkakrishnan issued notice on the petition filed by one Mahesh Bhatt, a resident of Dwarka and his father Shambhu Dutt Bhatt giving Delhi Police opportunity to respond to this issue. Facing trial for criminal breach of trust (IPC Section 406) along with demanding dowry (Section 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act 1961), the Bhatts alleged that initially the two families had seen and decided to get their children married. A date of engagement was fixed for May 3, 2004 but prior to it, the boy’s family demanded that a sum of `2 lakh should be paid to them.
But on the engagement day, the family of the boy refused to turn up as they felt the sum of `2 lakh was not sufficient for conducting marriage. As per the chargesheet submitted by police, when the girl’s father visited them the next day enquiring the reason why the boy and his family refused to turn up at the engagement venue, Shambu Bhatt (boy’father) made an additional demand of `2 lakh. Even the boy conveyed to the girl’s father that he will agree to marriage only on this condition.
The girl’s family claimed helplessness to pay the said amount and desired that if this was not acceptable to the boy’s parents they would not proceed further. But the boy’s father claimed that he desired to proceed with the proposal, but refused to scale down his demand. At this the girl’s father demanded back the sum of `2 lakh, earlier paid to the boy’s family but they flatly refused to return the same, the charge sheet said. It was then the girl’s father approached the police with the complaint, based on which the boy and his father became the main accused.
The boy’s lawyer Jyotika Kalra submitted before the apex court that the provisions of Dowry Prohibition Act were wrongly attracted as it could not be invoked in a case where neither any marriage ceremony nor marriage took place.
She defended the boy claiming that all discussion over alleged demand of dowry never involved him and thus it was wrong to allege that father and son acted with common intention to commit the crime.