SHYAM LAL Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant Shiam Lal has been convicted under Section 498, I. P. C., by the learned Sessions Judge, Agra, and has been sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) It appears that Smt. Govindi was living with her husband Babu Lal and father-in-law Jiwa Ram in Mohalla Mohanpura, Police Station Rakabganj, in the district of Agra. The accused Shiam Lal was employed at the shop of Babu Lal. On the 12th January 1952, Babu Lal found that his wife with the younger daughter was missing from the house and that some ornaments and cash were also missing. He made a report about it at Police Station Rakabganj the same day at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and in that report he suspected the appellant Shiam Lal, Gopi Lal and Balwanta. It was alleged in the report that Smt. Govindi had either been taken in connection with illicit intimacy or she herself had gone away with the accused. No witnesses were mentioned in the report and it was stated that their list shall be submitted in Court. Govindi was found in Court on the 7th April 1952, along with the accused. They wanted to take her away by force but were unsuccessful. She was brought by the brother of Babu Lal to his house. Her daughter, however, was taken away by the accused and it was on the 9th April 1952, that she was said to have been handed over to the complainant by the police to whom she had been taken by the Panchayat Committee Of Nagla Albatia. Babu Lal filed a complaint on the 13th December 1952, in the Court of the City Magistrate, Agra, against seven persons under Ss. 364, 366, 376, 392 and 120. I. P. C. It was alleged in this complaint that Smt. Govindi was taken to the house of Rani Devi by Ram Bharose accused that the accused Shiam Lal, Gopi, Bhoji and Balwanta were present there from before, that they forcibly put her in a tonga and carried her away to Shahganj and she was detained there in the hut of Balwanta accused for four or five days. It was, further, alleged that from there she was taken to Gwalior by Shiam Lal accused who kept her as his wife and committed rape on her several times, that Shiam Lal in conspiracy with the other accused wanted to sell her to a Jat and on the 7th April 1952, they brought Govindi to Court and wanted to have an application made and it was there that she was caught by Chokhey LaJ, brother of the complainant, who happened to be present in Court. It was, further, alleged in the report that the accused had also taken away several ornaments of Smt. Govindi and Rs. 200 in cash which she had with her at the time.

(3.) The accused denied that they had abducted Smt. Govindi from the house of Smt. Ram Devi or that she was taken to the house of Smt. Ram Devi by Ram Bharose accused. Their case was that they had been falsely implicated on account of enmity. The accused Balwanta denied in his statement that Smt. Govindi was kept in her house by Shiam Lal accused. The accused Shiam Lal stated that he had been in the service of the complainant Babu Lal for some time, that he had not paid him his wages and when he demanded it from him he got him falsely implicated in this case.