VINOD YOGENDRASINGH JUNER Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal filed by the appellant (accused No.1) challenging judgment and order dated 06.10.2003 passed by the Court of 1st Ad hoc Additional Sessions Judge, Gondia (trial Court) in Sessions Trial No. 33 of 2001, whereby the appellant along with accused No.2 Uttam Kaur stood convicted for offence under Section 366 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and was sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 2 years and to pay fine of Rs.2000/-. The accused No.2 Uttam Kaur had also filed appeal bearing Criminal Appeal No.677 of 2003 challenging the aforesaid judgment and order passed by the trial Court. But, during the pendency of the appeal, the accused No.2 Uttam Kaur expired and her appeal stood dismissed as abated.

(2.) As per the prosecution case, the prosecutrix in the present case i.e. PW1 was taken away from her house by the accused No.2 Uttam Kaur on the pretext of having her married to one Tinu Makkad, with whom the prosecutrix was admittedly having a love affair. While going out of the house carrying a bag of clothes, the prosecutrix told her mother (PW3) Radhabai that she was going out to give her Saree for pico fall. According to the prosecution, the prosecutrix accompanied the accused No.2 Uttam Kaur to the Railway Station but the said Tinu Makkad did not come and in this situation she took the prosecutrix to the house of one Bablu Zha. The prosecutrix waited for Tinu Makkad in the said house till it was night time and when Tinu Makkad did not arrive, the accused No.2 Uttam Kaur left prosecutrix in the house of Bablu Zha and went away. The prosecutrix was left in the house of Bablu Zha where the appellant (accused No.1), Bablu Zha and one Hitesh Dongre stayed with her in the said house.

(3.) Thereafter, on the next day the accused No.2 Uttam Kaur came to the said house and told the prosecutrix that she could not go back to her own house now that she was defamed. It was further claimed that accused No.2 Uttam Kaur forcibly got the prosecutrix married to the appellant (accused No.1) in the said house of Bablu Zha and that thereafter the appellant allegedly tried to commit sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix. It is further the case of the prosecution that the appellant then took the prosecutrix away to Rajnandgaon where they checked into a lodge with fictitious names and that thereafter the appellant took the prosecutrix to a house at Rajnandgaon, where the prosecutrix was forced to write certain letters to her mother. It is the case of the prosecution that thereafter the appellant took the prosecutrix back to Gondia and handed over her custody to her mother Radhabai (PW3) on 20.08.2000 in a garden from where the said Radhabai (PW3) took the prosecutrix to the Police Station and lodged the first information report (FIR).