JAGESHWAR SHARMA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants suffered conviction under section 366 of the Indian Penal Code and was sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for a term of three years on being tried by Shri N.N. Singh, IInd Additional Sessions Judge, Vaishali at Hajipur in sessions trial No. 138 of 1985.

(2.) THE facts of the case which have been spelt out the details in the judgment of the court below need not be narrated with much elaboration, and factual matrix -are that on 6th November, 1982, as usual, the appellant, who was coaching Kalpana Kumari a minor girl and aged about fourteen years, daughter of Yasoda Biswas (P.W. 4), took the said Kalpana Kumari in his company to take her to school. However, when Kalpana Kumari did not come back to her house, the worried parents made hectic search to locate her and came to know only in the following evening of the incident, that the appellant had taken Kalpana Kumari on his bicycle to some unknown destination. It was alleged that when father, in the company of others visited house of appellant and made enquiries about Kalpana Kumari, the appellant stated to have married her and did not permit her to go with her father and, on these accusations, a police case had been registered against the appellant, pursuant to which, investigation commenced, and on conclusion of which the police laid chargesheet before the court to put the appellant on trial. In the eventual trial that commenced, the State examined altogether ten witnesses. The defence of the appellant before the trial court and also this court has been plain denial of allegations and he ascribed false implication, and the trial court, while negativing contentions raised at bar on behalf of the appellant about his innocence, rendered finding of guilt and sentenced the appellant, in the manner stated above.

(3.) THE facts of the case as has been stated was that the appellant, who was teaching Kalpana Kumari took her in his company and, allegedly, married her and this is the tenor of the first information report. The father of Kalpana Kumari made candid admission that neither he witnessed appellant taking Kalpana Kumari with him nor police made recovery of her from house of appellant and, that apart, he stated to have instituted the case only on suspicion against the appellant. As has been urged at bar even evidence of P.W. 1 was not free from blemishes about recovery of Kalpana Kumari from the house of appellant by the police. Though he stated to have signed recovery memo he was not in a position to state as to where the recovery memo was prepared by the police, and once testimony of these two witnesses are rejected which fail to bring home charges against the appellant, there was no evidence of positive nature on the record to make the appellant answerable with the charges with which he was saddled at trial. The most disturbing feature of the prosecution case was that even police, who, allegedly, made recovery of Kalpana Kumari from the house of the appellant, was not examined, even the person, who stated to have noticed the appellant taking Kalpana Kumari in his company on the bicycle, was not examined by the State and lot of witnesses examined by the witnesses were either tendered or were hostile.