A court has slapped the stricter charges of death due to dowry and criminal breach of trust on the husband and in-laws of Rashika Jain, who had died after a purported fall from the terrace of her in-laws’ Alipore house last month.
The two charges were added following a prayer by Calcutta police, who are probing the death and had initially started a case under IPC sections 498A (cruelty towards married women) and 306 (abetment to suicide).
It was only after Rashika’s family submitted a fresh complaint seven days after the first complaint, mentioning the alleged demands from her in-laws’ family, that the investigators submitted a prayer to add the charges.
The court recently granted the prayer. Sections 304B (dowry death) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) have been added to the existing charges.
The charge of causing dowry death, in less than seven years of marriage, could lead to a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
Rashika got married to industrialist Kushal Agarwal in February last year. No one has yet been arrested in connection with the young homemaker’s death.
A criminal lawyer not attached to the case said the charge of abetment to suicide is a “relatively wide section, while proving dowry death is easier”.
“In the absence of a suicide note with any specific mention, abetment to suicide charge becomes a wide section and it is relatively difficult to prove the involvement (of the accused) in the victim’s death. On the other hand, the charge of dowry demand is more subjective and easier to prove,” said the lawyer.
The charge of causing death due to dowry demand, he said, is considered stringent especially if the death occurs within seven years of marriage.
“In this case, they (the couple) had spent only one year into marriage. This increases the gravity of the charges,” the lawyer said.
Investigators have examined the staff and drivers at the Agarwals’ house to ascertain the sequence of events before and after Rashika’s purported fall on February 16.
The police said they had seized CCTV footage from the cameras at the Agarwal residence.