JANGLI MIAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been convicted by the Assistant Sessions Judge of Muzaffarpur and a jury under Section 366, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for five years. The verdict of the jury was unanimous. The charge against the appellant was that he had either taken a girl named Nawazan under 16 years of age out of the keeing of her father, or abducted her, with the intention of seducing her to illicit intercourse. The prosecution case is that Nawazan was married four years ago to a youth Rasul Mian, a resident of a village 14 miles from her home, whose present age is about 16. The marriage bad not been consummated and she continued to live with her father Aklu Mian in a mohalla of the town of Sitamarhi. On 12 March 1933, in the absence of her father who had gone to the bazar, Nawazan went to the house of her uncle next door but one to her own.

(2.) Her uncle was also away from home. It is alleged that at about 5 p.m., the appellant and his brother-in-law took her away from that house to the appellant's house in another part of the town. When Aklu returned from the bazar and learnt what had happened he went to the appellant's house and demanded the girl, but the appellant refused to surrender her. Aklu then lodged an information at the police station. The girl was found by the police in the appellant's house that night.

(3.) The appellant's defence was that he had married Nawazan in the previous October and that he had been falsely accused by Aklu because he owed Rs. 30 to Aklu since the date of the marriage which he had not been able to pay. A man who claimed to have performed the marriage ceremony gave evidence for the appellant and stated that Nawazan had been in the appellant's house for four months before the marriage.