SUBIR JANA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the impugned judgment and order dtd. 18/12/2023 and 19/12/2023, Court below convicted Appellant Subir Jana @ Sanjay and Surya Pradhan @ Sankar, for committing offence punishable under Sec. 370/366/366B/370A(2)/120B and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for each offence and also to pay fine in Sessions Case no. 125 of 2013. Being aggrieved by the said judgement and order, convict Surya Pradhan @ Sankar has preferred instant CRA(SB) 8 of 2024 and convict Subir Jana @ Sanjay preferred instant CRA(SB) 43 of 2024 and both the appeals were conjointly taken up for hearing for the sake of convenience and brevity.

(2.) The instant Jorabagan PS case no. 165 of 2013 dtd. 7/8/2013 was started under Sec. 366A/366B/370/372/373/120B of IPC read with Sec. 14 of the Foreigners Act against three accused persons namely the present two Appellants and also against one Manoj Bera on the basis of a written complaint lodged by complainant Sikha Devi @ Purnima Chatterjee, on behalf of Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, wherein she alleged that on 7/8/2013 at about 2:15 P.M, the accused Manoj Bera brought a minor girl in his house at Rabindra Sarani. In course of routine visit by the members of their committee, they got the victim girl from the house of accused Manoj. Manoj informed that the girl was brought by one Subir Jana. Accordingly Subir Jana was called and was brought before the committee. On being asked, the victim girl disclosed that one Sumi brought her from Bangladesh and handed her over to the accused Sankar/appellant and then Sankar handed her over to Subir/another appellant. She also told that the appellant Sankar engaged her in prostitution at Odisha. Thereafter she was handed over to Subir Jana by Sankar. She further stated that on 6/8/2013 Subir brought her back and kept her in his house at Baguihati and on 7/8/2013, she was brought by Subir at Rabindra Sarani. After getting such information the complainant informed the fact to Lalbazar police station who came and rescued the girl. On the basis of said compliant the instant FIR was lodged and the investigation started.

(3.) During investigation police arrested all the aforesaid three accused persons and examined accused Subir Jana and the victim girl and recorded their statement under sec. 161 Cr.P.C. arranged to send the victim girl to safe custody. Prior to that he seized the wearing apparels, the cosmetics and the contraceptive (19 tablets) from the victim girl under proper seizure list in presence of the witnesses. During investigation the victim was examined under Sec. 164 Cr.P.C by the Magistrate and after receiving the said statement of the victim girl, the investigating officer prayed for Test identification parade (in short T.I. parade) of accused Subir Jana, Monaj Bera and Sankar. The victim girl identified all the three accused persons in T.I Parade. I.O. also produced the victim girl for medico-legal examination and after collecting report he arranged to send her in a shelter home.