JAGDISH DAS Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application is directed against the order of the learned Second Additional Sessions Judge, Darbhanga dated 22nd November, 1975 by which he allowed the criminal revision application and directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Madhubani to commit the petitioners to face their trial before the Court of Session for an offence under section 366 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) The facts relevant for the purpose of this case are shortly these :- On 5th" December 1972, one Chhatradhari Prasad Singh husband of Mahari Devi filed a complaint before the Sub-divisional Magistrate, Madhubani alleging that the petitioners had abducted his wife with the intention of grabbing her properties and for sexual offence and also for giving her in marriage to some one else for which preparations were being made. The complainant alleged further that Mahari Devi was kept concealed in the house of petitioner no. 1, Jagdish Das. The learned Sub-divisional Magistrate sent a copy of the complaint to Khajauli police station for institution of a case where Khajauli Police Station Case no. 5 (12)-72 was instituted. During the investigation Mahari Devi was said to have appeared at the police station where she made her statement to the effect that she had not been abducted and that she had voluntarily gone away with petitioner no. 1. Her statement under section 164 o the Code of Criminal Procedure was recorded on 7th December, 1972, where she repeated her statement which she had made before the' police. Mahari Devi had been taken into custody, but she was released on 21st December, 1972, when she presented a complaint before the Sub-divisional Magistrate. That complaint petition as well was sent to Khajauli police for institution of a case and Khajauli Police Station Case no. 6 (l)-73 was registered on its basis. In her complaint Mahari Devi alleged that the accused persons had gone to her house on 24.11.1972 and represented to her that her husband was ill and, therefore, it was necessary for her to go where her husband was lying ill. She was thus induced to leave her parents' house for her husband's place. The petitioners, however, did not allow her to go to her husband's house and instead they took her to the house of petitioners nos. 1 and 2. The petitioners also pressed her to take another husband, but she successfully defied the pressure. She was, however, kept in wrongful confinement and her thumb-marks were taken on blank stamped papers. The petitioners also threatened to murder her and under this threat they took her to Madhubani Court where she was made to give statement exonerating the petitioners.

(3.) The police submitted charge-sheet and against the accused persons one instituted by the husband of Mahari Devi and the other instituted by Mahari Devi herself and cognizance was taken against the petitioners. The petitioners moved this Court in Criminal Revision nos. 1724 and 1725 of 1973, which were dismissed by Madan Mohan Prasad, J., with the observation that the learned Magistrate will consider the prayer for amalgamation of both the cases. It was thus that the two cases came to be amalgamated.