SATWANT KAUR Vs. SH KULDIP BAKHSI ADVOCATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition by Smt. Satwant Kaur purported to have been filed under Section 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (for short, the code) is directed against the judgment of the Additional Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, dated July 15, 1980, whereby he accepted the revisions filed by Kuldip Bakshi (now respondent) and set aside the proceedings pending against him in the trial Court holding that the complainant (now petitioner) had no locus standi to file the complaint against the respondent nor the Magistrate had the jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offence under Section 495, Indian Penal Code. Smt. Satwant Kaur has also filed Crl. Misc. No. 5164/M of 1980 under Section 482 of the Code for quashing the order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, dated July 15, 1980 and for the modification of the order passed by the Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Ludhiana, dated January 14, 1980. This judgment will govern both the revision petition and the miscellaneous application involving the same questions of law and fact.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to this petition are very few and simple. Kuldip Bakshi respondent, who is stated to be an Advocate at Ambala, was married to Smt. Vijay Bakshi sometime in the year 1965 and a daughter was born out of this wedlock. Without the dissolution of that marriage Kuldip Bakshi contracted second marriage with Satwant Kaur by concealing his first marriage with Smt. Vijay Bakshi. The mother and sister of Kuldip Bakshi are stated to be a party to the second marriage. Smt. Satwant Kaur came to know about this fraud after the marriage and consequently she filed a complaint against Kuldip Bakshi, his mother and sister under Sections 495/114, Indian Penal Code. The complaint led preliminary evidence and the learned Magistrate found a prima facie case only against Kuldip Bakshi under Section 495, Indian Penal Code and accordingly summoned him. He challenged this order by going up in revision. Smt. Satwant Kaur also challenged the trial Court's order in revision and requested for further enquiry. The learned Additional Sessions Judge relying a Division Bench decision of Patna High Court in Banamali Tripathy and another v. Emperor, AIR 1943 Patna 212 and a single bench decision of this Court in Jarnail Singh v. Swaran Kaur, 1977 C.L.R. (Pb. and Har.) 71, dismissed the revision filed by Smt. Satwant Kaur but allowed the revision filed by Kuldip Bakshi, holding that the offences under Sections 493 to 496, Indian Penal Code, could be taken cognizance of on the complaint of the aggrieved person, who was the first wife. That being the position, it was found that the complainant in the present case had no locus standi to file the complainant that under Section 198 of the Code, the Magistrate could not take cognizance of the offence under Section 495, Indian Penal Code, on the basis of such a complaint.

(3.) SH . Ujagar Singh has urged with little persistence that the learned Additional Sessions Judge has gravely erred in holding that only the first wife could be an aggrieved party and, therefore second wife could not file a complaint under Section 495, Indian Penal Code and thus the order impugned in this revision is liable to be set aside. This is just a bald submission of the learned counsel and it has not been supported by any principle or precedent. In Jarnail Singh's case, (supra), it has been ruled by K.S. Tiwana, J., that according to the provisions of Section 198 of the Code, complaints for the offence under Sections 493 to 496, Indian Penal Code, are to be filed by the aggrieved person and in case of bigamy, the first wife is the aggrieved person and it is she who can object to the bigamous conduct of her husband in entering into a marriage with another woman during her life time. I am in respectful agreement with the law enunciated by K.S. Tiwana, J. In this view of the matter, the learned Additional Sessions Judge is right in holding that the complaint filed by Smt. Satwant Kaur is not competent as she does not fall within the category of the aggrieved person.