CHANDRA SEKHAR PANDEY Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant who was charged under Sections 366, 366-A and 376, IPC for kidnapping, Sandhya, a minor girl with intent that she may be compelled to either marry the appellant against her will or may be forced and seduced to illicit intercourse as well as for committing rape on her, was convicted under Sections 366, 366-A and 376, IPC and was sentenced to undergo RI for 5 years and 10 years respectively under those sections by the Sessions Judge, Deogher in Sessions Trial No. 108 of 1992. Being aggrieved by the said conviction and sentence, the appellant has filed the present appeal.

(2.) The prosecution case in short is that at about 3 a.m. in the night of 26.10.1991, the victim Sandhya Devi a married minor girl came out of her room to urinate but thereafter she did not return. In the process for her search by the father and other family members, they met the appellant a neighbour of theirs, who told them that they should not raise halla and assured that the girl would return within 2 or 3 hours. When she did not return, the appellant was further interrogated and he stated before the co-villagers Mahendra Pandey and Sanatan Pandey that the girl would return by the evening, but inspite of the said assurance offered by the appellant the girl did not return and then on being convinced that the appellant had taken away the girl for committing rape and marriage, the informant Deo Narain Pandey lodged the FIR.

(3.) In course of investigation the victim girl Sandhya was recovered from the house of one Madan Hazara. On being recovered, the victim girl, disclosed that the appellant had kidnapped her, confined her and committed rape on her several times. She further stated that the appellant had taken her to a village Inarwatanr and had confined her in the house of Madan Hazara from where she was recovered.