MT WASIMA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The four appellants, Mt. Wasima, Juned, Shujat Ali and Hafiz Abdul Samad, have been convicted of offences as follows: Mt. Wasima under Section 366, Penal Code, and sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment, Juned under Section 368 and sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment, Shujat Ali under Section 419/109, and sentenced to 18 months rigorous imprisonment and Abdul Samad under Section 420, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment and under Section 419, Indian Penal Code, to two years rigorous imprisonment. They have all appealed, and have been represented by counsel in this Court.

(2.) The story for the prosecution, a large part of which is admitted to be true, is that Mt. Badarul Nissa came with her widowed mother, Mt. Miraim, some time after 1920 to the village of Bamhaur where the mother married Najib Khan. About 1930 when Mt. Badarul Nissa was about 12 years of age, one of the residents of the village, Siddiq, wished to marry his son Haidar to her, and according to the story for the prosecution, but not for the defence, a nika ceremony was performed. The girl continued to live after it with, her mother, but in November 1932, she was forcibly taken away to the house of Siddiq and Haidar, and she lived there under some constraint at any rate for about a year. At the end of this time the incidents occurred which led to the institution of the present proceedings. It is the case for the prosecution that Mt. Wasima, appellant 1, enticed Mt. Badarul Nissa away from the house of Siddiq and Haidar, and took her to the house of Juned, appellant 2, which is adjacent to Siddiq s. There she stayed for about nine days, and then Wasima again took her out, and they met Juned with, the fourth appellant, Hafiz Abdul Samad. She was taken across the river where they were joined by Shujat Ali, appellant 3. The party then went to Azamgarh railway station where Shujat left then, and the others went on to Saraimir station and so on to the house of Abdul Samad, in Sikraur, where the girl stayed for throe months, while arrangements were being made for her marriage to Aziz of Mubarakpur. In the course of these proceedings it is said a sum of Rs. 125 was paid to Abdul Samad on behalf of the brido groom. It is the case for the prosecution that this was the price of the girl. About ten days after this marriage the Sub-Inspector of Police, who was making enquiries about the abduction of a totally different girl, found that Mt. Badarul Nissa was in Aziz's house and learnt from her that she came from Bamhaur and on inquiry he unravelled the story which is now made the case for the prosecution against the four appellants.

(3.) It should be remarked that no report appears to have been made by Siddiq or Haidar about the disappearance of the girl from their house, nor do they appear to have complained to anyone about it, until the Sub-Inspector of Police found the girl and brought her back four months later. The learned Sessions Judge has accepted the story for the prosecution. He has found that the nika or marriage between Haidar and Mt. Badarul Nissa has been proved at any rate sufficiently for the purposes of the present case, and that if there was anything irregular in the ceremony, it has been cured by the conduct of the girl in living in Haidar's house as his wife after she had attained the age of 15 years. He has also found it proved that Mt. Wasima enticed the girl away in the manner stated on behalf of the prosecution, and that the rest of the events followed very much as they are described above. The defence is that there was no marriagie between Haidar and Mt. Badarul Nissa, that Mt. Badarul Nissa was forcibly taken to Haidar's house, that she escaped of her own accord and went back to her mother's house, that her mother was all along with her in the arrangements about the marriage with Aziz, and that the money paid to Abdul Samad by the bridegroom was merely to help Mt. Miriam with the expenses of the wedding.