HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court has dismissed two criminal petitions seeking to quash proceedings against five accused in a dowry death case, holding that the chargesheet and witness statements disclosed sufficient prima facie material to warrant a trial.
The case was registered under Section 304-B read with Section 34 of the IPC following the death of a woman at her matrimonial home. Justice J Srinivas Rao noted that the victim, who married the Accused No. 1 in November 2019, died by suicide on January 25, 2023.
According to the prosecution, she was subjected to harassment over a demand for an additional dowry of Rs 10 lakh and pressured to hand over her salary. Witness statements in the chargesheet detailed the roles of the accused.
Meanwhile. the accused argued that the victim had not named them in her suicide note. Rejecting the plea at this stage, the court observed that a suicide note could not be treated as an “encyclopaedia of the entire situation” and had to be considered along with the surrounding circumstances and other evidence.