KAMRUDDIN SHEIKH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against an order of conviction under Section 493, Indian Penal Code and sentence to (sic) for three years and a fine of Rs. 1,000, in default, to suffer imprisonment for one year thereunder. On May 27, 1969, P.W. 1 Sahida Khatun filed a complaint against the Appellant alleging therein that the accused had cohabited with her by deceitfully suppressing the fact that he had given talak to her and that as such she had ceased to be his lawfully married wife. On such complaint the accused was summoned under Sections 376/ 493, Indian Penal Code. The accused was committed to the Court of Sessions after an enquiry under chap. XVIII of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, by the learned Magistrate. The charge against him was under Section 493, Indian Penal Code, which runs as follows:

(2.) The defence of the Appellant was that he belonged to Ahaladis community of the Sunni sect of the Muslim and that this sect recognised only that kind of talak which was pronounced once in each three successive tahar and during the period of which the husband abstained from the exercise of conjugal right with the wife. Therefore, according to the defence talak mogallezai i.e. three talaks as recorded in the marriage register was an invalid and revocable talak. It was further the defence that the Appellant was compelled to give such talak because of the demands made by the father of Sahida Khatun to give some lands to her and that the Appellant never intended to give talak to her and was ever willing to take her back.

(3.) Mr. Balai Chandra Ray, learned Advocate, with Mr. Quadrat-e-Kabir appearing for the accused/Appellant contended before us that the prosecution had failed to establish that the accused gave any valid talak to Sahida Khatun and that in any event the ingredients of an offence under Section 493 of the Indian Penal Code were missing in the present case. Mr. Dilip Kumar Banerjee (II), Learned Advocate appearing for the State, supported the judgment of the trial Court.