SANTOSH SANTRA ALIAS BACHU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from jail against an order of conviction and sentence passed by the lea rued Additional sessions Judge, Midnapore in Sessions trial No. VIII of July 1979. The appellant and one Sk. Selim faced trial on twofold charges under Sec. 366a/34 and 372/34 of the Indian Penal Code. The other accused sk. Selim has been acquitted. The appellant was found guilty under both the charges and a sentence of 7 years' rigorous imprisonment was passed under sec. 366a and in view of the sentence passed therein, no separate sentence under Sec. 372 was passed.

(2.) THE prosecution case briefly is as follows. Sometime in the month of Ashar 1383 B. S. the appellant Santosh alias bachu approached the complainant (P. W. 1) with an offer that he might secure some employment for her minor daughter Arati elsewhere. P. W. 1, the mother who was living with her brother P. W. 4 along with her two minor daughters and earning her livelihood by working as a maid-servant, agreed to the proposal of the accused. Thereafter the accused took away the girl arati and another girl (P. W. 6) named jhuna. Sometime later the appellant assured P. W. 1 that Arati was well and that she would return home during the Puja holidays but Arati did not return. On being confronted after the Puja the accused gave out that Arati was living happily elsewhere and might not return. Thereafter p. W. 1 came to learn that Arati has been sold away to a certain chamar somewhere near Delhi. On getting such information she lodged a written complaint with the nandigram Police Station on 6. 11. 1976, the complaint being written by P. W. 16, the dafadar of the anchal (Ext. 4 ). Thereafter the investigation was taken up. The victim girl Arati was recovered from the house of one Surja Singh in village Dariyapur in the district of Saharanpur in U. P. The girl was medically examined at Roorkee Female hospital and thereafter on being transmitted to the court of the S. D. J. M. at Tamluk, she was further examined clinically as well as radio logically by different doctors. She was found to be below the age of 18 at the relevant time, i. e. , in july 1976. After completion of investigation charge-sheet was submitted against the two accused persons under Sees. 366a and 372 of the Indian Penal Code. The appellant did not take up any specific plea except a bare deniaj of the allegations.

(3.) AS many as 21 witnesses were examined for the prosecution. The defence adduced no evidence.