Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:115692 Court No. - 65 Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 24585 of 2025 Applicant :- Smt. Rekha Devi Opposite Party :- State of U.P. Counsel for Applicant :- Gaurav Kakkar,Raghvendra Prakash Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. Hon'ble Krishan Pahal,J. 1. List has been revised. 2. Heard Sri Gaurav Kakkar, learned counsel for the applicant and Sri Bhuvnesh Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the informant as well as Sri Amit Kumar, learned State Law Officer and perused the record. 3. Applicant seeks bail in Case Crime No. 0087 of 2025, under Sections 80(2), 85 BNS and Section 3/4 of D.P. Act, Police Station Nehtaur, District Bijnor, during the pendency of trial. 4. As per prosecution story, marriage of son of the applicant was solemnized with the deceased person as per Hindu rites on 18.11.2024 and heavy amount was spent by the informant in the said marriage. Subsequent to it, applicant and other family members are stated to have subjected the deceased to cruelty for demand of dowry and thereby led her to death on 17.04.2025. 5. Learned counsel for the applicant has stated that the applicant is innocent and she has been falsely implicated in the present case. She has nothing to do with the said offence. The allegations are per se false. The informant and other family members had knowledge of the incident since 17.04.2025 at about 2:30 a.m. which is but evident from the statement of sister of the deceased person but the informant did not care to institute the FIR on 17.04.2025, rather the FIR has been instituted on 18.04.2025 at about 11:06 a.m. 6. Learned counsel has further stated that autopsy of the deceased person has been conducted on 18.04.2025 at about 2:40 p.m. and was concluded at 4:10 p.m. the same day. The said autopsy report indicates that the cause of death has been found to be asphyxia as a result of ante mortem smothering. 7. Learned counsel for the applicant has next argued that the allegations are per se false. The husband of the applicant and her son rushed the deceased person to hospital and she was admitted there and it was suspected that she had consumed some poison and was given treatment for the same. 8. Learned counsel has further stated that medical report indicates that her gastric lavage was conducted at the third hospital. Even the medical report of the second hospital indicates that she would be subjected to gastric lavage, as such post mortem report is vague, although viscera was preserved and the F.S.L. has come up and no poison has been found in the said viscera report. 9. Learned counsel has next stated that the FIR does not mention as to what was demanded in dowry. Even the informant did not mention the said fact of demand of dowry in his statement recorded under section 180 BNSS, rather he has stated in his supplementary statement recorded under section 180 BNSS that there was demand of a car. 10. It it further stated that it is a clear cut case of false implication as the time of death, as per post mortem report, has come out to be 13:30 hours from the medical examination and it does not match with the time mentioned in the FIR or in the statements of the witnesses. The applicant is the mother-in-law of the deceased person and there are general and omnibus allegations against all the accused persons, as such applicant is entitled for bail. 11. Per contra, learned State Law Officer and learned counsel for the informant have vehemently opposed the bail on the ground that it it true that the cause of death has been found to be smothering and the said fact was wrongly mentioned by the husband and father-in-law of the deceased person at the hospital to be a case of poisoning as no poison has been observed in the viscera report of the deceased person. The said fact also speaks volume of malafide intention of the applicant and the family members. 12. Learned counsel for the informant has further argued that there are four injuries observed by the doctor conducting autopsy of the deceased person. The FIR has been instituted by the informant the next day of the incident, as such applicant is not entitled for bail. 13. After hearing learned counsel for the parties and taking into consideration the cause of death being smothering and there being four injuries sustained by the deceased person admittedly in the house of the applicant and there is nothing on record to show that the applicant lives separately to the husband-wife duo, I do not find it a fit case for grant of bail to the applicant. 14. The bail application is found devoid of merits and is, accordingly, rejected. 15. However, it is directed that the aforesaid case pending before the trial court be decided expeditiously, in view of the principle laid down in the recent judgements of the Supreme Court in the cases of Vinod Kumar vs. State of Punjab 2015 (3) SCC 220 and Hussain and Another vs. Union of India (2017) 5 SCC 702, if there is no legal impediment. 16. It is clarified that the observations made herein are limited to the facts brought in by the parties pertaining to the disposal of bail application and the said observations shall have no bearing on the merits of the case during trial. Order Date :- 17.7.2025 Sumit S (Justice Krishan Pahal) Digitally signed by :- SUMIT SRIVASTAVA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad