EMPEROR Vs. SHEO JANAK PANDEY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Sheo Janak Pandey, Brahmin, was charged In the Court of the Assistant Sessions Judge of Ballia under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code with the rape of Mt. Ratni, a small girl 12 years of age. The learned Assistant Sessions Judge acquitted the accused. the Local Government appeals. At or about noon on the 25th October 1932, in the village of Piaria, this small girl was engaged in cutting grass in an arhar field. It was alleged by the prosecution that Sheo Janak Pandey, a youth of 16 years of age, same to her and asked her to go with him to a neighbouring field in order to help him to put a bundle upon his head. The girl refused and was threatened by Sheo Janak Pandey. She went with him to his arhar field, and there she was ravished. To prove this case the prosecution called two eye witnesses, Beohu and Rajrup. These witnesses stated that they also were engaged in cutting grass in a neighbouring field; that they heard the shouts of the girl and ran up to her assistance; that they saw the accused lying on top of the girl and that on their approach the accused ran away into the jungle. The father of the girl, Babu Ram, also gave evidence. He was also engaged in a neighbouring field. On hearing the girl s cries, he ran to her assistance and found her lying in the arhar field with her cloths turned up and stained with blood. He says he saw the accused running away to the jungle and Bechuand Rajrup chasing him. Another witness Bhuilotan gave evidence that he saw the accused later washing his dhoti, which was spotted with blood, at a tank near the village. He asked the accused what had happened and he said that a broil had burst and so he was cleaning his dhoti. The girl herself gave evidence, and the Civil Surgeon proved that injuries existed consistent with rape. The first information report was made by the girl herself at the nearest thana that afternoon. In this report she told the story which she related in the box, and recorded the fact that Beohu Ahir and Rajrup Ahir had come to her assistance that Sheo Janak had then fled away. She also mentioned that her father had arrived and be had seen Sheo Janak running away. The defence hardly cross-examined any of these witnesses, except to raise the question of enmity which they alleged existed between the girls father and the accused. The enmity alleged was said to be occasioned by a very minor matter concerning a drain which ran from the house of Sheo Janak Pandey through the court-yard of Babu Ram. The learned Judge on this properly comes to the conclusion that there was no real cause of enmity.

(2.) On this evidence a clear case of rape had been made out by the prosecution. The defence did not allege in the lower Court and does not allege in this Court, that rape had in fact not been committed. It is perfectly clear from the medical evidence that this little girl had been raped by some one. There was no reason shown why Sheo Janak Pandey should have been falsely accused. After the defence evidence was closed, however, a defence of alibi was produced by the accused. We may say that, on the face of it, it is the most complete evidence of alibi that we have ever seen or that it is possible to imagine. The brother of the accused was a constable attached to the Kotwali in Benares, which is at a distance of some 80 miles from village Piaria. He gave evidence that his young brother, the accused had been living with him in the Kotwali for some four or five months before the 25th October; that he had been employed by a Benares mahajan, and that from the 25th to the 27th October the accused had been ill in the Kotwali and a local Homeopathic doctor had attended him calling to see him on every one of these days. He further said that a distant relation of the accused was very ill on the 25th October and was being attended by a Sadhu at Balia; that an uncle of the accused had telegraphed to the witness asking him to send the boy from Benares back to the village in order that he might see his dying relative, and that the witness himself replied by telegram on the morning of the 26th October that the accused was ill and could not travel. Both these telegrams were produced in the court. Ram Yad Pandey, the uncle of the accused, gave evidence that he had telegraphed about the illness of Raju Pandey, whom he described as a distant uncle of the accused, to Sheopujan Pandey on the date of occurrence from the nearest railway station and that he had had a reply on the 26th or 27th October from Sheopujan Pandey by telegram. He further produced a postcard dated the 25th October and bearing a post-stamp of that date. This postcard was written by the accused and was received by the witness on the 27th October. The post-stamp of the 25th October is also on the post-card. In that post-card Sheo Janak Pandey said that he was lying up with fever, that he was having the treatment of the doctor of Godaulia for the last three or four days, that the fever was high for two days and that he had loose motions also.

(3.) Hansraj, who is alleged to have been the employer of the accused in Benares, gave evidence that he had employed him from the 1st May until the 3rd or 4th of November, and that the accused had been away from duty, ill in the last week of October. Dr. S.P. Bose of Benares was called. He said that he kept a register of patients; that he attended Sheo Janak Pandey in the Kotwali at Benares visiting him every day from the 22nd October till the 27th October; that Sheo Janak Pandey was suffering from fever and had loose motions and that he had been paid the fee of Rs. 10 or Ra. 15 for the visits. Chandraka Prasad, head constable was also called. He said that he was the head moharrir at the Benares Kotwali since May 1932; that the accused lived with Sheopujan Pandey, constable, at the Kotwali from the month of May; that he remembered that at the end of October Sheo Janak was ill and that Dr. Bose had come to the Kotwali and treated him. This evidence is absolutely conclusive, if it is true that on the 25th October, the date of the rape, the accused had been absent from his village Piaria for some five months and was actually lying ill on the 25th October in the Kotwali at Benares some 80 miles away. On this evidence the learned Assistant Sessions Judge came to the conclusion that the evidence threw sufficient doubt upon the case for the prosecution to entitle him to give the accused the benefit of it. This is, in our opinion, a curious finding. If the defence evidence was true, there could be no doubt whatever about the innocence of the accused. It is clear that the Judge did have doubt about the truthfulness of this defence evidence.