Ram Bhushan vs State of Punjab

M.M. Punchhi, J.

These are two Criminal Appeals No. 570SB of 1987 and 571SB of 987 against the judgment and order of the Additional Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, whereby the two appellants, Ram Bhushan and his wife Sunita, have been convicted under Section 366 of the Indian Penal Code sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a period of five years and payment of fine of Rs. 2,000/ each, in default of payment of fine, further rigorous imprisonment of six months to each.

The way this appeal has been argued by learned counsel. It is not essential to give a complete detail of the case of the prosecution. Yet at the outset, it deserves mentioning that initially the learned Judge had framed charges against the accused, Ram Bhushan for offence under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (on two counts) and against both the accused for offences under sections 363, 366 (for kidnaping) and 342 of the Indian Penal Code. Thereafter, the accused stood trial for these charges. On 14.7.1987, the date when the judgment was pronounced, an additional and alternative charge under section 366 (for abduction) of the Indian Penal Code was framed it is under the latter charge that conviction of the appellants was recorded whereas they were acquitted of the charges earlier framed.

Now to the facts The appellants, husband and wife, lived close to the house of one Balwant Singh at Ludhiana. Jasbir Kaur prosecutrix, was on visiting terms with them. On 1861985, Jasbir Kaur left her house and the appellants took her to Bombay. There she was allegedly made to work as a prostitute and raped by different persons. On 1081985, K. C. Abdul Hameed PW of Bombay was supplied by the appellants Jasbir Kaur for immoral purposes at the rate of Rs. 50/ per hour or Rs. 300/ for the whole night. Jasbir Kaur told her tale of woe to K. C. Abdul Hameed and at her suggestion he took the help of Surjit Singh, who was from Punjab. K. C. Abdul Hameed and Surjit Singh then took the prosecutrix and the accused appellants to An Top Hill Police Station, Bombay, where S.I. Suresh Jagannath Nalawade arrested the appellants for offences under sections 363, 366, 376 and 114 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code as also under sections 3 and 4 of the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women Act. The investigation was then taken over by Punjab Police and finally the appellants were sent up for trial.

The learned trial Judge as is evident took the view that the evidence on the record had sufficiently proved that both the accused had induced by deceitful means the prosecutrix to go from Ludhiana to Bombay with the intention or knowledge that she may be forced or seduced to illicit intercourse there, and then the charge under section 366 for abducting Jasbir Kaur as framed in the alternative stood proved against the appellants beyond reasonable doubt and squally the appellants were acquitted of the other charges.

The learned counsel for the appellants made a faint attempt to show that the prosecutrix was a willing party to go to Bombay and that she had chosen an immoral life at her own convenience. However, the attempt was given up by learned counsel in face of the evidence of K. C. Abdul Hameed (PW5), Surjit Singh (PW7) and Suresh Jagannath Nalawade PW6. All these witnesses were from Bombay and they had unequivocally deposed about the presence of the accused with the prosecutrix on 10.8.85 and further PW 5 K. C. Abdul Hameed was positive that the prosecutrix was offered to him for sexual abuse on that date. He claimed that he knew Sunita, appellant, before the occurrence as she used to bring girls and would supply them to customers and that he had been supplied girls on one or two occasions earlier. With regard to the prosecutrix, he stated that Sunita told him in the presence of her husband, that they had brought a new girl from Punjab for their business of immoral traffic and that she had offered the girl to him at Rs. 50/ per hour or Rs. 300/ for the whole night. He somehow took pity on the girl when she told him her tale of woe and at her suggestion contacted Surjit Singh, a person from Punjab, whom he knew. Surjit Singh took pity on her and as designed by these two PWs, they apprehended both the appellants and produced them alongwith the prosecutrix before PW 6 Suresh Jagannath Nalawade The fact that PW5 and PW7 had taken the prosecutrix alongwith the accused to the Police Station at Bombay, against whom the appellants could allege no enmity or illwill, goes to show that the version of the prosecution that the prosecutrix was being seduced to sexual intercourse is positively proved. However, the fact still remains whether the accused had abducted the prosecutrix from Ludhiana with that result in mind.

It is to be seen from the evidence of the prosecutrix that her father was a poor clerk working in a mill and her mother too was a worker. She apparently belonged to the economically weaker section of the society and had dreams of her own which were emploited by the appellants as they had become friendly to her and had gained her confidence. Had it not been so, the proseuctrix would not have accompanied them to stay in a house at Ludhiana initially for three days, then go to Jalandhar, to come down South to Nasik and then to Bombay. It is the appellants who guided her course to lead her to Bombay. The inducement offered to her that she would be married in a good family at Bombay and provided with good work was just a pretence to make her go from her paternal house and to entrap her and seduce her to illicit intercourse for immoral purposes. It is in this light that the learned counsel for the appellants in view of the weighty evidence produced against the appellants could not challenge their conviction and straightaway has come to plead for reduction of sentence.

Now with regard to the reduction of the sentence, two factors are prominent. The first is that the proseuctrix in view of her age being above 18 cannot be said to be wholly an innocent party. She should have cautioned herself before leaving her father''s house against the possibilities of her exploitation. She was a city bred girl and according to her statement had gone with the accused on earlier occasions to movies. It is well known that the variety of movies which urban young girls get to see is sufficient education to them as to what plight they meet when they leave their paternal house and flock to Bombay, a place invariably such vice of exploitation of girls is screened as the highest. How the appellants were able to handle the prosecutrix is clear not only from the statement of the prosecutrix but also from their conduct as deposed to by PW5 K. C. Abdul Hameed and PW 7 Surjit Singh. Though they were party to the whole episode yet they cannot be said to be wholly responsible for it. Therefore, this is a redeeming factor so far as the measure of their sentence is concerned. The second factor is about their poverty for they would not be in Ludhiana for just working in a mill had they any better prospects of living. The learned counsel for the appellants states that initially this appeal was filed by them through jail and when he was later on engaged, he vouchsafed that they were extremely poor persons. This factor too somewhat plays a part. The appellants were ordered to be released on bail by this Court on April 22, 1988 Learned counsel, however, says that since the appellants could not provide the surety, they could not be released on bail till about two or three months back. This statement he had made at the bar with a great sense of responsibility. From this angle, it can be termed that the appellants have already undergone about fifteen months imprisonment, whereafter they were released on bail. I think this imprisonment which the appellants have suffered is enough to meet the ends of justice. Accordingly, while dismissing the appeals, I reduce the substantive sentence of the appellants to the period already undergone and reduce the fine to Rs. 100/ each, in default thereof they shall further undergo imprisonment of fifteen days each The appeal thus stand disposed of.