Judgment :

ANIL R. DAVE, J.

1) Being aggrieved by an order dated 8th September, 2005 passed by the High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi in Criminal Revision No.788 of 2005, whereby the order of conviction of the appellant was confirmed by the High Court, the appellant has filed this appeal. By virtue of the impugned order, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of three months and to pay a fine of Rs.500/-, in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of two months has been confirmed.

2) This appeal was initially heard by this court but after hearing the appeal, one of the learned judges was of the view that the appellant could not have been convicted for committing an offence under Section 493 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘the IPC’), whereas the said view was not accepted by another learned judge.

3) In the afore-stated circumstances, the appeal was placed before the Hon’ble Chief Justice, who referred it to a three-judge Bench and, therefore, it had been placed before us.

4) As the facts have been duly discussed by both the learned judges in their respective orders, we narrate the same in a nutshell. According to the case of the prosecution, the appellant had acquaintance with the complainant and upon developing intimate relationship with her, by his actions he made the complainant to believe that she had become the wife of the appellant herein and thereby they had stayed together for nine years as husband and wife and during that period the complainant had given birth to two children - a son and a daughter. Thereafter, the allegation is that the appellant had turned the complainant out of his house.

5) In the afore-stated circumstances, a complaint was filed by the complainant and in pursuance of the said complaint the appellant was prosecuted. After a full-fledged trial, the appellant was convicted by an order dated 20th December, 2003 passed in G.R. Case No.27 of 1992 (Lohardaga P.S. case No.12/92) by the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Lohardaga. An appeal filed against the order of conviction, being Criminal Appeal No.1 of 2004, was dismissed by the learned Additional District and Sessions Judge, Lohardage. Being aggrieved by the order of dismissal of the appeal, the appellant had filed Criminal Revision No.788/2005 before the High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi and the same was rejected by an order dated 8th September, 2005, which lead to the filing of this appeal.

6) We heard the learned counsel and also meticulously perused the impugned judgments and the record pertaining to the case.

7) Before dealing with the case in hand, let us see as to how and why the learned judges of this Court had come to different conclusions.

8) As we are concerned with the provisions of Section 493 of the IPC, it would be just and proper to look at the said section before we deal with the subject.

“Section 493: Cohabitation caused by a man deceitfully inducing a belief of lawful marriage – Every man who by deceit causes any woman who is not lawfully married to him to believe that she is lawfully married to him and to cohabit or have sexual intercourse with him in that belief, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

9) Upon perusal of Section 493 of the IPC, to establish that a person has committed an offence under the said Section, it must be established that a person had deceitfully induced a belief to a woman, who is not lawfully married to him, that she is a lawfully married wife of that person and thereupon she should cohabit or should have had sexual intercourse with that person. Looking at the afore-stated section, it is clear that the accused must induce a woman, who is not lawfully married to him, to believe that he is married to her and as a result of the afore- stated representation, the woman should believe that she was lawfully married to him and there should be cohabitation or