Difference between the offence of cheating and extortion.

Miss T. Pankajam filed a private complaint against one V.R. Venugopal charging the latter with having committed offence under section 417, Indian Penal Code, in the Court of the Sixth City Magistrate, Hyderabad. The learned Magistrate took the case on file under section 417, Indian Penal Code. The Advocate for the accused in the trial Court raised certain preliminary objection about jurisdiction and contended that the accused should be discharged straightaway. The learned trial Magistrate considered the preliminary objection and passed an order, dated 13th January, 1960, holding that her Court had jurisdiction to try the case and that there was no need to discharge the accused at that stage. The accused filed Crl.R.P. No. 53 of 1960 against that order in the Court of the Chief City Magistrate-cum-Additional Sessions Judge, Hyderabad. The latter dismissed the revision petition, observing as follows:

“It is only the High Court that can interfere with the orders passed regarding jurisdiction of the Court. Hence, the petitioner should approach the High Court to set aside the order of the lower Court if he is entitled to get it set aside.”

Thereupon, the accused has filed this petition praying that the order of the two Courts be set aside and that the complaint be dismissed.

The allegations in the complaint in brief are as follows: The accused was working as a Demonstrator in the Government Arts College, Engineering College, etc., at Anantapur, from 1949 to 1953. He was unmarried. He made friends with the complainant who was an unmarried young woman and a b.a., b.t. and was working as a School Assistant in the Government Girls’ School at Anantapur from 1950 to March, 1954. The accused promised to marry her and wanted her to have sexual relations with him. The complainant believed those promises and yielded to his request and began to live in unmarried intimacy with him. All the same, she was frequently reminding him about the promise of marriage and asking him to marry her. The accused was repeating his promises and reaffirming them but, at the same time, postponing the marriage on some pretext or other. This unmarried intimacy between the two unmarried people which started at Anantapur continued even after the accused went away on transfer from Anantapur to Madras in August, 1953 and even after the complainant was transferred from Anantapur to Kurnool in March, 1954. In February, 1957, the accused joined as a Senior Research Scholar at Kodaikanal Observatory. Then also, the complainant importuned the accused to marry her but the accused asked for more time by representing that he had entered into a bond with the Government of India and that he would have to pay Rs. 3,000 to the Government if he married.

The accused further induced the complainant to lend him various sums of money on various dates, amounting to over Rs. 3,000 (as stated in para. 3 of her complaint) by representing to her that he would surely marry her and repay the same after his course at Kodaikanal was finished.

On 31st July, 1959, the complainant went to Kodaikanal and implored him to marry her. On this occasion, the accused made a final promise on 1st August, 1959 (at Kodaikanal) that he would go over to Hyderabad in about the second week of August, 1959, to marry the complainant at Hyderabad and asked her to incur the necessary expenditure and make all arrangements for the marriage, promising to repay the amount at Hyderabad, at the time of the marriage. Believing this representation, the complainant incurred an expenditure of about Rs. 200 purchasing provisions, clothes, etc., for making arrangements for the marriage at Hyderabad.

The accused did not turn up as promised. On 29th August, 1959, the complaint sent her brother, T. Lakshmana Rao to Madras to implore the accused and bring the latter to Hyderabad for celebrating the marriage as promised. Lakshmana. Rao accordingly met the accused at Madras on 30th August, 1959 and implored the accused but found th