- (1.) THE judgment and order dated 16.12.2005 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track) No.2, Jaipur City, Jaipur rendered in Sessions Case No.63/2005 acquitting the respondent No.2 of the charge under Sections 376 and 366 of the Indian Penal Code is the subject matter of assailment in the present revision petition. I have heard Mr.A.K.Jain, learned counsel for the petitioner, Ms.Alka Bhatnagar, Public Prosecutor for the State and Mr.V.S.Shekhawat, learned counsel for the respondent No.2.
(2.) ON 14.10.2004, an FIR was lodged by Suresh Kumar Lakhera with Police Station, Kanota, District Jaipur alleging that since 12.10.2004, his wife Anita, aged about 23 years, had left their house without leaving any information, taking alongwith her their two years old daughter. The FIR further disclosed that the informant had searched for her for two days and had strong suspicion that Dharamveer Regar (the respondent No.2) had enticed away his wife. On the FIR, the police registered a criminal case and on completion of the investigation, laid charge-sheet against the respondent No.2 under the aforementioned sections of law. Meanwhile, the prosecutrix had returned to the house of her father and was produced at the police station. At the trial, the respondent No.2 denied the charge, whereupon the prosecution examined several witnesses including the victim as PW-6. In his statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C., the respondent No.2 denied the charge of abduction and rape and asserted that the prosecutrix had accompanied him on her own volition, and that, he did not use any undue influence or force on her. The learned trial court, on a consideration of the evidence on record by the judgment and order impugned herein, acquitted the respondent No.2. The learned counsel for the review petitioner has emphatically argued that the grounds on which the learned trial court exonerated the respondent No.2 are frivolous and perverse and thus, the impugned judgment and order warrants interference in the interest of justice. According to the learned counsel, having regard to the evidence of the prosecutrix, PW-6 as a whole, the charge of abduction and rape against the respondent No.2 stood proved beyond all reasonable doubt. Mr.Jain insisted that the minor omissions in the testimony of the victim being wholly inconsequential, the learned trial court erred in law and on facts in recording the acquittal of the respondent No.2. The learned counsel, in particular, emphasized on the fact that as the prosecutrix had been throughout kept under constant threat by the respondent No.2 to eliminate her minor child she, by no means, could be construed to be a consenting party, and thus, the view taken by the learned trial court being wholly impermissible in the face of the evidence on record, the acquittal of the respondent No.2 ought to be interfered with. To buttress his arguments, Mr.Jain placed reliance on the decisions of the Apex Court in Criminal Appeal No.376/2010 (Swaroop Singh Vs. State of M.P.) and Criminal Appeal No.1156/2010 (Dilip Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh).
(3.) IN reply, Mr.Shekhawat has maintained that as the testimony of the prosecutrix, PW-6 revealed, in no uncertain terms, that she had voluntarily accompanied the respondent No.2 and had rendered her company during their stay together, the learned trial court rightly construed her consent, and in that view of the matter, the impugned judgment and order of acquittal being valid in law, does not call for any interference. Referring to the omissions on the part of the prosecutrix, amongst others, in her statement under Section 164 Cr.P.C. indicating want of any culpable mind or act of the respondent No.2 to secure her company, the learned counsel has urged that as the view taken by the learned trial court on the basis of the evidence on record is a plausible one, in absence of any overwhelming consideration to the contrary, no interference with the impugned judgment and order is permissible in law. He argued further that the prosecutrix having candidly admitted that she alongwith the respondent No.2 had travelled from one place to the other by public transport and had stayed at various places, and that, she did not raise any hue and cry for being retrieved from the captivity of the respondent No.2, the learned trial court had rightly, adjudging that she had voluntarily accompanied him, rejected the charge of abduction and rape.;