( 1 ) THE petitioner Desh Ram Pal has been implicated by the Police Station Moti Nagar. under Section 406 Indian Penal Code. vide F. I. R. No. 128/92. In brief the case of the prosecution is that the petitioner was married to complainant Smt. Santosh, daughter of late Shri R. L. Sharma. After the marriage, the petitioner started qurelling and beating his wife and turned her out from his house along with their son who was eight months old. She lodged a report with the Police Station Rani Bagh. The petitioner filed a petition for divorce which was contested by his wife and got the same dismissed. The petitioner filed a writ petition which was also dismissed but the Letter Patent Appeal is pending. Since the wife had no source of income, therefore, she filed a petition for maintenance and the Court granted the maintenance at the rate of Rs. 350. 00 per month. For some time the petitioner paid the amount of maintenance but thereafter stopped the same. She is living with her parents for the last 15 years and had been demanding the return of her articles given to her by her parents at the time of marriage. Along with the complaint she has furnished all the details regarding the articles lying with the petitioner and the demand made by her.

( 2 ) ON this complaint the present F. I. R. was lodged, li is further the case of the prosecution that in order to investigate, the Investigating Officer tried to contact the petitioner but found that he has given a wrong address. His whareabouts are not available nor he is disclosing his whereabouts as a result of which the investigation could not be completed because the petitioner is absconding.

( 3 ) THE petitioner has sought for quashing of the F. I. R. inter-alia on the grounds that the complaint of the wife is barred by time. She could have demanded the return of the dowry articles maximum within three years. Having not done so, the complaint cannot lie. Moreover, the ingredients of Sections 405 and 406 are not made out from her complaint. Her complaint suffers from lack of particulars. The same is vague, as no particulars of dowry have been mentioned nor it is mentioned that the petitioner refused to return the same.

( 4 ) TAKING these as the grounds he has attacked the F. I. R. lodged. In support of his contention, Mr. Baldev Raj counsel for the petitioner urged that according to complainant s own showing she got married 15 years before the lodging of the complaint and the F. I. R. has been lodged on 2nd March, 1992. Therefore, on the face of it, it is barred by time and in this regard he has placed reliance on the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the case of Gurcharan Singh Vs. Lakhwinder Kaur reported in Recent Criminal Reports in Crl. M. 809-M of 1986 decided on 9th March, 1987. The case before the Punjab and Haryana High Court was also under Section 406-I. P. C. While dealing with the preliminary submission of the counsel for the petitioner the Court opined that the complaint was not within time prescibed under Section 468-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure and in view of that the trial court was not competent to take cognizance of the matter. It was further observed that in the complaint, no where it was mentioned by the complainant as to when any of the accused refused to return the article entrusted to them which she claimed to be her stridhan . All what was stated in the complaint was that the articles of dowry presented at the time of marriage and handed over to the accused persons remained in trust with them till the same are handed over by them to the complainant and their refusal to hand over the said articles to the complainant amounts to breach of trust. In this view of the matter, the Punjab and Haryana High Court took the view that the complaint was not within limitation. The argument of the wife that the limitation should run from the date she filed the complaint, because even after the filing of the complaint, the articles had not been r