JUDGMENT Madan Mohan Punchhi, J.
1. The conviction of the appellants under Section 201, I.P.C. whereunder they have been sentenced to three years' R.I. is under challenge in this appeal.
2. The appellants are son and father respectively named Dhura and Pokhar. The deceased was the wife of Dhura. It appears that the brother of Dhura was once engaged to the sister of the deceased. The engagement was broken off. The deceased was suspected of being instrumental in its breaking off. Both the appellants had grudge against the deceased on that count. Near about the day on which the deceased met her death her first cousin was to be married and she and her husband's family members had been invited. Since they were not responsive, PW-6 was sent to the house of the appellants to repeat the invitation and of the appellants being expected to join the marriage festivities. To the surprise of PW- 6 he was told that the deceased had died and that she had been cremated on that very day. Suspecting foul play, on being told, the father of the deceased reported the matter to the police. The appellants after investigation were charged of murder and alternatively for causing disappearance of evidence of the offence of murder. The Court of Session acquitted them of the charge under Section 302, I.P.C. but convicted them under Section 201, I.P.C. The conviction was maintained by the High Court and hence this appeal.
3. The established case of the prosecution is that the appellants were maintaining strained relations with the deceased on account of the breaking off of the betrothal. The second circumstance established is that they had been unresponsive to the wedding invitation coming from the deceased's family. The third circumstance established is that even though the villages of the parties were 3 KM apart, the death of the deceased was not reported to her parents and she was cremated on the day her death in their absence. The defence put forward by the appellants was that the deceased had been suffering from diarrhea and other connected ailments for a few days prior to her death and her death due to such" illness was quite natural.
4. We are required under these circumstances to examine whether the charge against the appellants under Section 201, I.P.C. stands proved beyond reasonable doubt. As is evident, and so must be presumed, that to the healthy death does not visit and take its toll unless something untowards happens. It is common that should it happen the ailments of the deceased are mentioned about to the well-wishers and sympathisers who came to condole the death and often talked and repeated about. When the appellants had taken upon themselves to assert that death had occurred on account of brief illness of the deceased, their word in that regard could not be accepted unless it was supported by production of some evidence either of a doctor or a quack who could supposedly have attended on her, or by evidence of co-villagers who would have supported the defence that the deceased was known to have died a natural death. Not only is the defence lacking in this regard but the non-information of the death of the deceased to her parental family further leads to the conclusion that the defence suggested was palpably false. This casts a reflection when integrated with the strong motive being the resentment on breaking of the betrothal afore referred to. The fact that there was a marriage in the parental family of the deceased would bring to the fore the hostile attitude of the appellants as the going of the deceased to her parental house could become a source of strife between them and the deceased, which could have prompted them to do away with hear. All these circumstances could well be explained away or correspondingly established had the dead body of the deceased been not cremated surreptitiously in the absence of her family members. The totality of circumstances thus persuade us to conclude that the dead body of the deceased could have revealed commission of offence punishable at least under Section 304/11, I.P.C. and for destruction of that evidence by cremation of the dead body. the appellants had attracted to themselves the third part of Section 201, I.P.C. whereunder they would be liable to suffer imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 1/2 years. Invoking that part, we maintain the conviction under Section 201, I.P.C. but reduce the sentence of the appellants to one year's R.I. Since the appellants are on bail, they arc required to surrender to their bail bonds forthwith. The appeal is disposed of subject to the modification in sentence as aforesaid.