BALDEO MAHATO Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from jail in which Mr. Mangleshwar Prasad Sinha has very kindly assisted us. The appellant Baldeo Mahato has been found guilty of the offence under Section 376, Indian Penal Code, by the learned Assistant Sessions Judge of Bhagalpur in agreement with the unanimous verdict of the jury, and has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for seven years.

(2.) The allegation against the appellant was that in the afternoon of 24th December 1944 he had committed rape on a girl called Mt. Lachhia, aged about 13, at a place called Manelia jungle. It was alleged by the prosecution that both the appellant and the girl Mt. Lachhia had gone to the said jungle to tend cattle. The appellant suddenly lifted Mt. Lachhia in his lap and took her to a ditch nearby. He placed her on the ground, removed her Sari and then committed rape on her. Mt. Lachhia tried to cry out, but her mouth was gagged. When the appellant left the girl, she found that she was bleeding from the vagina. She got up and painfully returned to her house, where she narrated to her mother what happened. The mother then took the girl to the house of the appellant's step-father where, in the presence of certain other persons, the girl is stated to have narrated her story.

(3.) It was alleged by the prosecution that the mother of the girl removed the blood stained Sari and gave the girl another Sari to wear. The blood stained sari was then washed by the mother. The next morning the girl and her mother went to one Pathal Rai whose cattle the girl used to tend. On the advice of Pathal Rai, information was lodged at the police station. On that information an investigation was made, and the appellant was put on trial with the result stated above. The defence of the appellant was that he had been falsely implicated, because his step-father had given him some land which had caused annoyance to the mother of one Ritwa. Ritwa, it was alleged, was the brother of the girl Mt. Lachhia.