Court case(2000) 5 SCC 207

Sunita Kumari was married to Rakesh Kumar in 1985; her father Kans Raj and brothers said she was harassed for dowry by the husband and his parents, brother and sister-in-law. In October 1988, within seven years of the marriage, she was found dead in the matrimonial home with marks of strangulation; the family had tried to pass it off as natural. The trial court convicted the husband and relatives; the High Court acquitted all of them, and the father appealed.

The Supreme Court restored the husband's conviction under ss. 304B and 498A but confirmed the acquittal of his relatives. "Soon before" is a relative term and no fixed period can be laid down; the cruelty or harassment must have a proximate and live link with the death, and not be stale or remote. The husband's demands for dowry continued until shortly before the death and the presumption under s. 113B applied. On the relatives, the Court warned against the tendency of complainants to rope in every member of the husband's family with vague and general allegations, which only helps the real culprits by diluting the case.