'Marriage Reduced To Commercial Transaction Due To Evil Of Dowry': Supreme Refuses Bail In Dowry Death Case

The Supreme Court on Friday (November 28) cancelled the bail of a man accused of poisoning his wife for dowry just four months after their marriage. While doing so, the Court criticized the menace of dowry, still existing in society, reducing the sacred bond of marriage to a mere commercial transaction.

“This Court cannot lose sight of the fact that marriage, in its true essence, is a sacred and noble institution founded on mutual trust, companionship, and respect. However, in recent times, this pious bond has regrettably been reduced to a mere commercial transaction. The evil of dowry, though often sought to be camouflaged as gifts or voluntary offerings, has in reality become a means to display social status and to satiate material greed.”, observed a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan while allowing the appeal filed by the father of the deceased, and setting aside the Allahabad High Court's order that had granted bail to the accused-husband.

“The phenomenon of dowry deaths represents one of the most abhorrent manifestations of this social malaise, where the life of a young woman is extinguished within her matrimonial home – not for any fault of her own, but solely to satisfy the insatiable greed of others. Such heinous offences strike at the very root of human dignity and violate the constitutional guarantees of equality and life with dignity under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. They corrode the moral fibre of the community, normalize violence against women, and erode the foundations of a civilized society.”, the court added.

The Court found the High Court's bail order "perverse and unsustainable" for ignoring the gravity of the offence, corroborated dying declarations, and the statutory presumption of dowry death.

The Appellant's case was that his daughter was married to Respondent No. 1 on February 22, 2023. It was alleged that soon after the marriage, she was subjected to cruelty and harassment for additional dowry, specifically a Fortuner car. She died under highly suspicious circumstances on June 5, 2023, after allegedly consuming poison.

The prosecution's case relied heavily on a distress call the deceased made to her elder sister around 1:30 AM on the night of her death, wherein she stated that her husband and relatives had "forcibly administered some foul-smelling substance" to her. The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report later confirmed the presence of aluminium phosphide poison.

Founding the High Court's order to be erroneous, the judgment authored by Justice Mahadevan said “permitting alleged prime perpetrators of such heinous crimes to remain at liberty on bail, when evidence indicates active infliction of physical as well as mental cruelty, may not only jeopardize the fairness of the trial but also erode public faith in the administration of criminal justice.”

“It is well established that bail granted without due application of mind to relevant factors – such as the gravity of the offence, prima facie evidence, or the antecedents of the accused – may be annulled. Courts must consider the totality of circumstances, balancing the presumption of innocence against the seriousness of the crime, societal interest, and risk of the misuse of liberty.”, the court said, adding that “the High Court's omission to consider the gravity of the offence, the corroborated dying declarations and the post-mortem evidence renders the impugned order perverse and unsustainable.”

Accordingly, the appeal was allowed.

Cause Title: YOGENDRA PAL SINGH VERSUS RAGHVENDRA SINGH ALIAS PRINCE AND ANOTHER

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 1150

Click here to download judgment

Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) Mrs. Ruchi Kohli, Sr. Adv. Mr. Shyam Singh Chauhan, Adv. Mr. Avnish Dave, Adv. Mr. Vijay Kumar Pandey, Adv. Mr. Raj Singh Rana, AOR

For Respondent(s) Mr. Siddharth Dave, Sr. Adv. Mr. Shaurya Krishna, Adv. Mr. Durgesh Shukla, Adv. Ms. Sapna Singh, Adv. Mr. Himanshu Tyagi, Adv. Mr. Gaurav Srivastava, Adv. Mr. Gaurav, AOR Mr. Adarsh Upadhyay, AOR Mr. Ajay Singh, Adv. Ms. Pallavi Kumari, Adv. Mr. Shashank Pachauri, Adv.