AJIT KUMAR Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The very first month of the year 1993 saw the appellant convicted and sentenced under Sections 366 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code. Though no time was lost by him in filing the appeal, we let years slip by. The long and dreary, wait within the high walls and iron gates of prison, in the meanwhile, must have made his life grow insipid and lose its relish. Was it not Oscar Wilde who said in The Ballad of Reading Gaol:

(2.) I know not whether laws be right, Or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long. And what if now I acquit? And if I do so, and that is what I do propose to do, what about his withered years and shattered dreams?

(3.) Let me introduce the main character, the prosecutrix for she occupies the centre-stage. The lady, let us call her Meena Devi for that is the name by which she is known, is not only married but a mother too. On February 9, 1992, after having weathered more than eighteen summers, she left her native village in Bihar, came to Muzaffarpur and boarded a train for Delhi where lives her husband. She was not alone. We are told that someone did accompany her. Who was he? Her husband? Perhaps!. Her own brother? Possibly! Or was he her husband's elder brother? May be! How can one be sure, when the lady herself is not certain about the identity of her companion? She thrice changes the nature of her relationship with him. Husband's brother first, husband thereafter and then brother. The mystery of the companion apart, the journey to Delhi was not destined to be smooth. It so happened that her companion, whosoever he was, got down at a wayside railway station either to quench his thirst or to answer the call of nature, and before he could return, the train steamed off. To add to the lady's discomfiture, her companion by his misadventure even deprived her of her railway ticket, for it was he who was possessed of the same. No, she did not pull the chain. She did not even share her grief with anyone. She kept sitting in the compartment and then finally got down. Where? Hapur. Perhaps. And, I use the adverb "perhaps' because at another place she says it was the Delhi Railway Station where she had actually got down. But then, let us take it was Hapur. She comes out of the Railway Station, meets a truck-driver, and narrates her story of woe. The truck-driver takes her to a room, deprives her not only of her worldly possessions but her honour too. He then brings her to Delhi. No, not in his truck but in a crowded bus and in Delhi while she was having a cycle rickshaw ride, she, for the first time, spoke to the police. It so happened that while they were in the rickshaw a police van passed by. Our ever vigilant policemen (Do they not almost always manage to come from nowhere but at the right time?) made enquiries about the man sitting by her side and when she told them that she knew not who he was, her statement (Ex. Public Witness 5/A) was recorded. This was followed by her statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure where in she did not even name the appellant.