GOPAL ANANT MUSALGAONKAR Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the accused directed against the judgment of the Sessions Judge, Gwalior, dated 18-9-1971 in Sessions Trial No. 49 /71, whereby the appellant who was charged and tried for offences under sections 417, 493, 494 and 495, Indian Penal Code was convicted for offences under sections 417 and 495, Indian Penal Code and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one year and three years respectively (sentences to run concurrently ).

(2.) THE case was initiated on a private complaint filed by one M. John, daughter of K. C. Thomas, r/o Deogarh Kothi, P. S. Madhoganj (P. W. 1) (hereinafter referred to as the Complainant ). Briefly stated, the case of the prosecution was as follows: That the complainant who was employed as a nurse in the J. A. Group of Hospitals, Gwalior had developed intimacy with the appellant in the year 1965; that the appellant proposed to marry her, which she accepted subject to his converting himself to Christianity ; that the appellant converted to Christianity on 30-5-1966, the certificate whereof is ex. P-1, and thereafter married the complainant on 16-6-1966 in Kerala in the morethon Church, Venemony (District Chenganur); the entry relating to marriage is Ex. P/2; that at the time of this marriage the appellant was having a legally married wife named Suman, but he concealed this fact from the complainant and fraudulently and dishonestly induced the complainant to marry him by making a false representation that he was a bachelor.

(3.) THE appellant abjured the guilt, denied the marriage with the complainant; his plea was that the complainant, though she was unmarried, had conceived by someone due to which there was an apprehension of her services being terminated, the appellant on account of his friendship with the complainant, to save her services, allowed her to name him as her husband and accordingly. an entry was also got recorded in the marriage register of the church. The appellant also denied that at the time of the alleged marriage with the complainant his legally married wife was living. His plea in this regard was that his married wife Suman had died in the year 1962 and thereafter he had a keep whose name was also Suman