BHAWANI PATHAK Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Bhawani Pathak has been convicted under Section 366, Section 344 read with Section 109 and Section 342, I.P.C. Sarju Prasad has been convicted under Secs.344 and 368, I.P.C., and Ram Chandra Prasad has been convicted under Section 366 and Section 342, I.P.C. The appellants have each been sentenced to three years E.I. There was an institution at Gorakhpur which was known as the Abla Ashram, which was ostensibly a philanthrophie establishment and its avowed object was to shelter and rescue girls and women of all ages who were adrift in the world and in need of succour. Sarju Prasad was employed as munshi at the Ashram and Bhawani Pathak was a chaprasi attached to it. The prosecution alleges that, however laudable the intention of the original founders of this Ashram may have been, it had become to all intents and purposes a sort of exchange bureau for the purpose of supplying girls of a marriageable age to the Punjab and Sind; and it is alleged that the Ashram employed agents including Bhawani Pathak and Ram Chandra Prasad, whose duty it was to keep a look out for suitable girls and take them to the Ashram to be "rescued" whether they wished it or not. The case for the prosecution was as follows:

(2.) Mt. Lakhraji is a chamar girl of about 17 or 18 years of age. She had been married twice, but each union had ended in a separation, and in 1933 she was living with her parents at a village in the Pipiganj Police Circle. She has an uncle at Gorakhpur named Suphal and it is said that she went and spent a month or so with her uncle and aunt in November 1933. On 20 December she left her uncle's house for the Railway Station intending to catch a train for Pipiganj; but she never reached the Station. She met an old woman who began to talk to her and then Bhawani Pathak and two other men came up and began asking her questions as to who she was and where she lived. Ultimately they taxed her with having run away from home and they told her that her parents were at the Abla Ashram and said that she was to accompany them to that institution. At first she refused, but she was forcibly taken on an ekka by Bhawani Pathak and one of his companions. Her name and address were taken down at the Ashram by Sarju Prasad and she was detained there against her will. There were about 20 other girls or young women at the Ashram and some of them plotted to escape on the night between 30 and 31 December. Mst. Lakhrajia was the first to make the attempt and she managed to scale the wall by getting on to the shoulders of another girl; but the persons in charge of the institution were aroused by the noise and so the effort of her fellow conspirators to escape was frustrated. Mt. Lakhrajia found shelter at the house of a woman for a couple of nights and on the evening of 2 January, 1934 she went to the Railway Station; but she was met there by Bhawani Pathak, who insisted on her accompanying him to the house of Babu Gopi Nath, now deceased, who was a legal practitioner and was the secretary of the Ashram.

(3.) Several persons collected including a couple of constables, but they were satisfied with Bhawani Pathaks explanation that the girl had run away from the Ashram and that he was taking her to the house of Babu Gopi Nath. At the house of Babu Gopi Nath they met Ramchandra Prasad; and Babu Gopi Nath, after hearing what Bhawani Pathak had to say directed him to take the girl back to the Ashram. Bhawani Pathak and Ramchandra Prasad thereupon took her on an ekka to the door of the Ashram, but she refused to enter, saying that death would be preferable.