SAMARENDRA KUMAR CHAKARVARTI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants were tried before the Additional Sessions Judge of Shahabad and a jury of five for offences under Secs.366 and 363, I.P.G. There were two additional charges against the appellant K.K. Ali under Secs.366 and 363 read with Section 109. The jurors unanimously returned a verdict of guilty on all these charges and the learned Sessions Judge having accepted the verdict of the jury has sentenced the two appellants under Section 366 to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six years each and to pay a fine of Rs. 500 or in default to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for two more years. He has passed no separate sentence on K.K. Ali under Section 363 read with Section 109 or 366 read with Section 109.

(2.) The gravamen of the various offences with which the appellants were charged consisted in the kidnapping of a minor girl named Basanti Devi. According to the evidence adduced by the prosecution this girl was about 14 years of age on 4th July 1935 when these offences are said to have been committed, and she used to live with her mother and three brothers in a two-storeyed rented house in mohalla Karmontola in the town of Arrah. Of her three brothers Ketaki Ranjan Mukherjee, the eldest was a schoolmaster and, the other two Annada and Kumar, whose ages are stated to be 23 and 20, respectively acted as insurance agents. On the other hand the first appellant K.K. Ali was at the time of the occurrence employed as a Sub-Inspector of Detective Police at Arrah, while the second appellant (Samarendra Kumar Chakravarti or Samaresh) was working as a fitter in an electrical company. These appellants and one Kiranbala sister of second appellant also lived in Karmantola in a two-storeyed rented house between which and the house occupied by Ketaki Ranjan Mukherjee only a one-storyed house intervened. There has been some controversy between the parties as to the relationship between K.K. Ali and Kiranbala, but it seems to me to be fairly clear that Kiranbala was the wife of K.K. Ali and Samaresh was his brother-in-law. It appears that sometime in February or March 1935 the appellant K.K. Ali took out an insurance policy for Rs. 2,000 through Kumar, and while the negotiations for this transaction were in progress, Annada and Kumar on the one hand and the accused persons on the other met and visited each other at their respective houses on several occasions. In course of time both K.K. Ali and Samaresh became acquainted with Basanti Devi also who is said to have paid several visits to the house of K.K. Ali, these visits being arranged mostly by Kiranbala. It is also alleged by the prosecution that both the appellants used to meet Basanti at her house sometimes secretly and sometimes openly between March a April, and on 4 July. However that may be, in May 1935 there happened an important incident which made the elder members of Basanti's family alive to the necessity of keeping a watch on her movements. As the school was closed for the summer vacation Ketaki Ranjan left for Calcutta and he was followed a few days later by Annada with their mother. Annada was however absent only for a few days and when he returned he found that one night Basanti was missing from her room on the first floor, and while searching for her he noticed K.K. Ali slipping out of the house through the entrance door and Basanti hastily re-entering her room. Basanti being questioned eventually confessed that she had been in the company of K.K. Ali downstairs and so on the following day Kumar sent a telegram to Ketaki which was to the following effect: "Dada hopeless, come with mother."

(3.) What is stated by Annada and Kumar in their evidence is that, in fact Annada was not ill, but they had to couch the telegram in the words already stated in order to induce Ketaki to return to Arrah immediately and to avoid any reference to the unpleasant incident. Ketaki returned to Arrah two or three days later and from his evidence it appears that one-night he was roused from sleep and saw Samaresh his sister, and Ali standing on the open roof of their house and flashing a torch in the direction of his own house. Ketaki states that when he woke up he remonstrated with the appellants but Ali assumed a threatening attitude. This is not the only occasion on which a torch light is said to have been flashed by the appellants, it being stated in evidence that they had done so on previous occasions also. But whether these incidents about the flashing of the torchlight actually happened as alleged by the prosecution or are to be regarded as mere embellishment to the main story as suggested by the defence there can be no doubt that a serious incident happened on 4 July. On that day Basanti Devi left her house at night and was subsequently recovered from the house of K.K. Ali at about midnight. The prosecution case which is strongly supported by the evidence of Basanti herself is that in pursuance of an arrangement between her and the two appellants the latter knocked at the front entrance door of the house, and on hearing the knock she came out and went away with them. Her case is that the previous arrangement between her and the appellants was that she should leave her house for good that night and that she acceded to the proposal owing to the inducement which had been from time to time held out to her by the appellants and Kiranbala that she would be happily married to Samaresh. She has further stated in her evidence that the accused had planned to take her away to Calcutta that very night, but the plan was frustrated by the appearance of Ketaki Ranjan at the house of Ali with a number of other persons with the result that K.K. Ali was compelled to return Basanti to him. Ketaki Ranjan himself has stated that he had heard the knock at his door and when he went to open the door he found it chained from outside and thereupon he and his brothers finding that Basanti was not in the house proceeded at once to Ali's house and questioned him about Basanti. Ali at first denied her presence in his house but later on after the arrival of a number of other persons who lived in the locality they somehow got inside the house (it is said that somebody from inside the house opened the entrance door and so they could enter the house) and finally discovered Basanti in one of the rooms on the first floor.