EMPEROR Vs. MAKHAN LAL GARODIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the learned Sessions Judge of the Assam Valley Districts has referred the case of two persons, Makhan Lal Garodia and DebiDutt (Serangi) alias Kopa Driver, to us under Section 307, Criminal P.C. The accused were tried together with three other persons, namely, Bhuban Bijoy Singh, Sew Prasad Agarwalla and Sew Pujan, in the following circumstances: There is an unmarried girl whom the medical evidence shows to be of about 20 years of age, who at the time of the events in question was living with her brother-in-law Gaziram Kooch in Dibrugarh. There is a Marwari shop keeper in Dibrugarh of the name of Lachiram Agarwalla. It is an admitted fact that Lachiram formed an illicit connexion with the girl Subhadra. It appears that Lachhiram was in the habit at first of visiting Subhadra at Gaziram's house.

(2.) In April or May 1932 according to the prosecution, Makhania, Bhuban Bijoy and his mistress an Assamese Dom named Kusum, visited Gaziram's house and obtained possession of the person of Subhadra by falsely representing that they had been sent to fetch her by Lachiram. On this the girl consented to accompany Makhania and Bhuban. But she was taken by them not to Lachiaram's house but to Kusum's house where she was raped by Makhania. She was discovered by Gaziram at this house and recovered by him. His story is that he consented to compromise the matter for a sum of Rs. 100 of which Rs. 50 was paid on that occasion with a promise that the balance would be paid at a later date. He signed a document which does not support this theory but lends colour to the defence suggestion that he agreed to make over his sister-in-law to Makhania as his concubine. Whatever may be the truth as regards this part of the story, it is quite certain that Subhadra returned to Gaziram's house on or about the 10 May 1932 and that a fortnight later she was removed from that house with her consent to become the kept mistress of Lachiram. On that occasion formal documents were executed by the parties duly stamped and embodying an agreement that Subhadra should behave as an obedient and faithful wife towards Lachiram who on his side undertook to treat her properly and provide for her in a suitable fashion. Lachiram is a married man whose wife lives in the same house with him at Dibrugarh. Arrangements were accordingly made whereby Subhadra was installed in a room in a corrugated iron building in Dibrugarh belonging to a man named Dhaneswar. There were other people living in the building including a relation of Subhadra s, a man about 25 years of age named Manik Ram Subhadra lived in that house, Lachiram visiting her there periodically, until the night of 10 August 1932.

(3.) According to the prosecution, on that night, Makhania, Bhuban Singh and Debi Dutt who is a taxi driver, broke into the house and climbed over a partition into the room occupied by Subhadra and forcibly removed her. It is said that they carried her from the house towards Debi Dutt's taxi which was standing close at hand and that before they reached the taxi Subhadra struggled and forced them to drop her in the mud, a fact which roused the attention of Sew Dayal Hajam, P.W. 2, who claims to have recognized the three persons whom I have named. Subhadra however was put into a taxi which was driven in the direction of some cross roads. There were various people in the neighbourhood of the cross roads and a considerable number of them have given evidence. They say they heard the screams of a woman as also shouts of the male occupants of the taxi. None of them however claims to have recognized Bhuban by sight, though one says that he recognized Bhuban's voice. Subhadra's story is that she was taken to Kusum's house as on the previous occasion in May and there ravished by Makhania. Two days later she was removed to a village named Romai where she was kept in the house of one Sew Prasad. "Within the course of the same day she was taken from Romai by one of Sew Prasad's servants, a man of the name of Sew Pujan, to another hut belonging to Sew Prasad in an adjoining village of the name of Churikata. From there she was rescued by the police and Gaziram. This was the prosecution story and charges were eventually framed against Bhuban, Makhania and Debi Dutt under Secs.457 and 866, I.P.C. and against Sew Prasad and Sew Pujan under Section 383, I.P.C. Bhuban denied having had anything to do with the occurrence and having seen Subhadra on or about 10 August.