TARAMANI DASI Vs. GOPAL CHARAN DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition is directed against an appellate order made under Section 476B by the Assistant Sessions Judge, Cuttack, directing a complaint to be filed against the petitioner under Section 193 Indian Penal Code.

(2.) THE petitioner Taramani Dasi filed a complaint against the opposite party and some others under Sections 370/109, I.P.C., alleging that they plucked some cocoanuts from her trees. Her case was that she is the legally married wife of one Lalitmohan Rai the recorded owner of the disputed land on which the said cocoanut trees stood. After the death of her husband, she was in possession of the said property, but the accused persons plucked the cocoanuts from the trees standing thereon. On a complaint being filed the accused persons were summoned to stand a trial.

(3.) ON 26 -5 -62 the complainant examined herself as P.W. 1. In her cross -examination before charge she stated that she did not marry Lalitmohan but was in his keeping. She was doing all his household work as Lalitmohan had no servant, and stayed in his house. The charge was framed on 23 -7 -92. After examination of the witnesses foe the prosecution, Taramani filed an affidavit saying that she did not make a statement of the fact that she did not marry Lalitmohan but was in his keeping. She asserted that if such a statement as recorded was made in her cross -examination, it might have been done inadvertently and in an unguarded moment. In that affidavit she also described herself as the wife of Lalitmohan. Thereafter the petitioners filed a counter -affidavit on 22 -9 -62 alleging that the statement made by Taramani in cross -examination before charge represents the correct state of arrairs and that it was not stated by her through inadvertence and that the entire evidence had been read out to her and her thumb impression at the end of the deposition was given in token of her having admitted its correctness. The accused -petitioners further contended that the affidavit filed by Taramani on 6 -9 -62 was false and that a prima facie case having been made out against her under Section 193, she should be prosecuted under that Section and in the interest of justice an enquiry should be made under Section 476, Criminal Procedure Code