ABDUL AZIZ SHAH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case a rule was issued calling upon the District Magistrate to show cause why an order of the learned Assistant Sessions Judge adding a charge should not be set aside, on the following ground: That the learned Subdivisional Officer having dismissed the complaint under Secs.497 and 498, I. P.C., and the learned District Magistrate having in effect ordered a further enquiry into the complaint and no further enquiry having in fact been held the joinder of a charge under Secs.497 and 498 in the Court of Sessions is not warranted by law.

(2.) The facts of this case are peculiar. On 20 June 1928 a complaint was lodged by one Mathur Rajbanshi against the petitioner Abdul Karim Shah and a person named Mahamed Hossein saying that his wife Kahabani Baishnabani had been enticed away. A case under Section 498 was started, but was compounded, and the accused were acquitted. While that case was pending the Sub-Inspector of Police submitted a report suggesting the institution of proceedings under Section 107, Criminal P.C., alleging that there was a . likelihood of a breach of the peace over the custody of this woman. But the husband stated that there was no likelihood of a breach of the peace because he had settled the previous case by compromise. In spite of this statement the learned Subdivisional Officer refused to drop the proceedings saying that he wanted to see the woman and to be satisfied that a proper settlement had been arrived at. Upon that the husband stated that he could not produce his wife as she was unwell, and that he had no further enmity with the other party and that he was a poor cultivator and did not want to be harassed,. Thereupon the Subdivisional Officer made an order saying that he had reason to suspect that the wife was being coerced and that an offence under Section 366 had been committed, and he issued a warrant for the production of the woman. On 5th November 1928 the husband filed a complaint against the present two petitioners and Mahamed Hossein alleging that his wife had been abducted by them on 31 August 1928 namely on the date next after the date of compromise already referred to. On 23 November the woman was produced, and she stated that she had been secreted by her husband, also that she had been abducted by the accused some three months before. On 7 December the officer-in-charge recorded: The complainant is not taking any interest in the case.

(3.) On 28 January 1929 the woman was produced and the order recorded is that she refused to go back to her husband. Then on 31 January the order recorded is: The woman is now in hajat having failed to produce proper bail of the husband and that a new case had been started by the police on a fresh incident relating to the abduction. While all this was going on, on 1 December 1928 the husband stated that his wife had been released from hajat on a bail of Eg. 200 in the pending abduction case, and that in the early hours of the morning he suddenly found eight or nine persons taking his wife away, among whom were Abdul Karim and Mahamed Hossein. In connexion with this latter case the petitioners and two others namely Mahamed Hossein and one Nazaruddin Sarkar were arrested. On 12 February 1929 a charge sheet was submitted by the Sub-Inspector and the case under Section 107 was dropped. When they moved the learned Sessions Judge for bail the learned Judge released them on bail with these remarks: A third case of abduction which purports to say that the woman was taken away against her will must be treated with great suspicion.