KAJU KUMAR MANDAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant has been convicted under Section 366A and 376 I.P.C. and sentenced to R.I. for ten years under each count by a judgment dated 29.11.2001 passed by the 3 rd Additional Sessions Judge, Bhagalpur in Sessions Trial No.178 of 2001. The case of the Informant Devendra Choudhary is that his brother Jitendra Choudhary and the Appellant were friends, on account of which he used to often visit his house. On 25.12.1998 the Appellant was sleeping in the house of the Informant, whereafter the sister of the Informant went missing. They started searching her out and went to the house of the Appellant, who was also found missing from his house. It was then suspected that the Appellant had fled away with the victim to contract marriage with her.

(2.) The defence of the Appellant was that in fact there was love affairs between the two and this case has been set up only because it was not liked by the Informant and his family. The defence also produced two letters Exhibit 2 series, which were written by the victim to the Appellant to bring on record the relationship between the two. In fact on the date of occurrence he was taking the victim to his sister's house with her consent and had not kidnapped her.

(3.) The prosecution to prove its case examined seven witnesses in all. The victim has been examined as P.W.4, who stated that on the night of occurrence the Appellant was sleeping in his house. In the night she went to him, after which he lured her into the fields where he committed sexual assault upon her. Then the Appellant took her and kept her in a room at Bariyarpur where the neighbours informed the police, upon which she was recovered. It was suggested to her that in fact she had planned the entire incident with the Appellant and left out of will to which he denied. She stated that on account of fear she did not raise a commotion on the train. She stated that her age was 16 years on the date of examination.