SHYAM DEO PANDEY Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short question that arises in this appeal, by special leave, is whether the judgment and order of the Patna High Court dated May 10, 1968, dismissing the Criminal Appeal No. 453 of 1966, are in conformity with Section 423 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter to be referred as the Code) .

(2.) The appellants, who are accused Nos. 2 to 5, along with the first accused Sia Devi (wife of 5th accused) were tried by the learned First Assistant Sessions Judge, Biharsharif, for an offence under Section 363 of the Indian Penal Code. The case of the prosecution was as follows:

(3.) One Kanta Kumari, an orphan minor, and niece of the complainant (P. W. 1) Parmeshwar Pandey was under the lawful guardianship and protection of the latter and residing with him, since the death other parents. At about 8 P. M. on February 14, 1965, the fifth accused and his wife, the first accused, came to the house of the complainant and called Kanta Kumari. Kanta Kumari responded to the call by coming out. When she was questioned by her uncle as to where she was going out with the two accused, Kanta Kumari replied that she was going out for singing marriage songs. Kanta Kumari went away with the two accused and returned home by about midnight. In the morning of February 15, 1965, the complainant found that Kanta Kumari was missing from his house. On a search made by him, he came to know that Kanta Kumari was seen early that morning at about 3 A. M. going in the company of all the five accused persons for Ganga Ashnan. He was expecting Kanta Kumari to return. But on the evening of February 17, 1965, when he met the first and the fifth accused in the village, he was informed by the fifth accused that his paternal cousins, accused Nos. 2 and 3, had taken away Kanta Kumari with them. On receiving this information. Parmeshwar Pandey lost all hope of his niece Kanta Kumari coming back and on February 18, 1965 he filed a complaint before the police alleging that his niece Kanta Kumari a minor, has been kidnapped from his lawful guardianship by the five accused.