STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH Vs. PURAN CHAND SON OF SHRI BUDH RAM RESIDENT OF CHHOYAL, PHATI SHAMSHI, KOTHI KHOKHAN TEHSIL AND DISTT. KULLU, HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal by the State is directed against the judgment dated 6.9.2004 delivered by the learned Sessions Judge, Kullu in Sessions Trial No. 78 of 2003, whereby he acquitted the accused of having committed offences punishable under Sections 376 and 302 of IPC. The prosecution case, in brief, is that the accused had enticed the prosecutrix and committed sexual intercourse with her by giving her false allurement that he would marry her. A baby boy was born to the prosecutrix from the loins of the accused. The accused took the child from the prosecutrix on the pretext that he would place the child in some orphanage but actually murdered the child by throwing the child in the river Beas from the bridge going from Bhuntar to Manikaran.

(2.) AT the outset, we may notice that there are number of major discrepancies in the dates and translations of the testimonies of the witnesses. The Judicial Officer concerned has not properly translated the version given by the witnesses. He has also not given the correct dates and therefore, we have been compelled to go through the original record in Hindi. We would not like to say much in the matter but we will be failing in our duty if we do not observe that all the mistakes are such which help the accused and go against the prosecution. Since the judicial officer has retired, we do not want to say anything further in the matter.

(3.) ACCORDING to the prosecutrix she first had sexual relation with the accused on the day of Diwali in the year 2001 and thereafter she and the accused had sex on a number of occasions as a result of which she became pregnant. After the prosecutrix suspected that she had become pregnant she told the accused about this fact who in the month of May 2002 took her to Beas Hospital, Kullu for getting her aborted. The doctor declined to abort the child on the ground that the pregnancy was in an advanced stage. When the prosecutrix was about to deliver a child, the accused accompanied the prosecutrix and took her to a hospital at Mandi and got her admitted there on 21.11.2002, but her name was wrongly entered as Sita Devi. The prosecutrix gave birth to a male child on 22.11.2002 and next day on 23.11.2002 she was discharged from the hospital.