V R VENUGOPAL Vs. T PANKAJAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Miss T. Pankajam filed a private complaint against one V. R. Venugopal charging the latter with having committed offence under Section 417 I. P. C. in the court of the Vlth City Magistrate, Hyderabad. The learned Magistrate took the case on file under Section 417 I. P. C. The Advocate for [the accused in the trial court raised certain preliminary objection about jurisdiction and contended that the accused should be discharged straightway. The learned trial Magistrate considered the pre-liminary objection and passed an order dated 13-1-1960 holding that her court had jurisdiction to try the case and that there was no need to discharge the accused at that stage. The accused filed Criminal R. p. No. 53 of 1960 against that order in the Court of the Chief City Magistrate-Additional Sessions Judge, Hyderabad. The latter dismissed the revision petition, observing as follows: "It is only the High Court that can interfere with the orders passed regarding jurisdiction of the Court. Hence, the petitioner should approach the High Court to set aside the order of the lower court if he is entitled to get it set aside. Thereupon, the accused has filed this petition praying that the order of the two lower courts be set aside and the complaint be dismissed.

(2.) The allegations in the complaint in brief are as follows : The accused was working as a Demonstrator in the Government Arts College, Engineering College etc., at Anantapur from 1949 to 1953. He was unmarried. He made friends with the complainant who was an unmarried young woman and a B. A. B. T. and was working as a school assistant in the Government Girls School at Anantapur from 1950 to March 1954. The accused promised to marry her and wanted her to have sexual relations with him. The complainant believed those promises and yielded to his request and began to live in unmarried intimacy with him. All the same, she was frequently reminding him about the promise of the marriage and asking him to marry her. The accused was repeating his promises and reaffirming them but, at the same time, postponing the marriage on some pretext or other. This unmarried intimacy between the two unmarried people which started at Anantapur continued even after the accused went away on transfer from Anantapur to Madras in August 1953 and even after the complainant was transferred from nantapur to Kurnool, in March 1954. In February 1957, the accused joined as a senior Research Scholar in Kodaikanal Observatory. Then also, the complainant importuned the accused to marry her but the accused asked for more time by representing that he had entered into a bond with the Govt. of India and that he would have to pay Rs. 3,000.00 to the Government if he married.

(3.) The accused further induced the complainant to lend him various sums of money on various dates, amounting to over Rs. 3,000.00 (as stated in para 3 of her complaint) by representing to her that he would surely marry her and repay the same after his course at Kodaikanal was finished.