Ingredients for offence of kidnapping.

This is a Criminal Revision Petition filed against the convictions and sentences of the learned Sessions Judge of Chittoor division in C.A. No. 49 of 1950 confirming the convictions and modifying the sentences of the learned District Magistrate of Chittoor in C.C. No. 216 of 1950.

The established facts are: The accused are Muslims. They have been living near the house of a Muslim girl P.W. 1 who was under the lawful guardianship of her father P.W. 2. The girl was unmarried at the time of the occurrence and her age was 15 and was living with her father P.W. 2 and brother P.W. 3 in Mangasamudram, a suburb of Chittoor. On account of these accused being Muslims and neighbours they have been frequenting the house of P.W. 2 and have been on friendly terms with P.Ws. 1 to 3. On the evening of 13th July, 1950, at about 5 p.m. the second accused came to the girl P.W. 1 while her parents had gone to another village and gave her a chit of paper. On seeing P.W. 3 enter the house, P.W. 1 tore off the paper into bits and threw them away. Subsequently these bits have been collected and handed over to the Sub-Inspector and have been pieced together and exhibited as P-I. The second accused then went away. Subsequently at about 7 p.m. both the accused went to P.W. 1 again taking advantage of the absence of P.W. 3 from the house, and gave her another bit of paper Exhibit P-2 inviting her to go with them. P.W. 1 read the paper, threw it down and the second accused had taken it and it has been subsequently recovered from him by the Sub-Inspector. These people had then gone to the village of Yadamarri, six miles away and halted there for the night. I may point out here that when the girl left the place with these accused she had gone with her clothes, jewellery, etc. On the next morning the girl and the two accused got into a bus and went to Paradarami which is 4 or 5 miles away. There they stayed in the house of the second accused’s grandmother. Then P.W. 1 and the first accused stayed behind and the second accused came back to Chittoor. In the meanwhile P.W. 3 who returned to the house at 2 a.m. on the night of this girl’s departure from the house with the accused, finding her absent contacted his parents and all of them searched for her. Then on information from P.W. 4 who was returning from Gudiyattam to Chittoor that he saw P.W. 1 in the company of both the accused near Yadamarri P.W. 2 gave a complaint at the police station. The second accused was arrested and on information given by him P.W. 7 a Muslim gentleman engaged a car and went to Paradarami and found P.W. 1 and the first accused sitting in a mango tope and brought them to Chittoor. Both the accused were charge-sheeted for an offence under section 363, Indian Penal Code.

The case for the accused persons was a complete denial of the prosecution story. They denied the papers Exhibits P-1 and P-2, the elopement, their journeys and the accused 1 and the girl being brought back by P.W. 7 from Paradarami. In addition the second accused set up an alibi that on the night in question he was working in the Beedi factory and alleged enmity between himself and P.W. 4 whereas the first accused stated that he could not give any reason why the P.Ws. should falsely depose against him.

The accused examined two defence witnesses. D.W. 1 Sundaramma is the grandmother of accused 2 who denied that P.W. 1 and accused 1 came to her house at Paradarami and halted for the night. D.W. 2 is a potter at Santhapet and lives next door to accused 1 ‘s house and he testified that on the night in question he and accused 1 attended the film “Gunasundari” in the Premala talkies in the second show which lasted from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. and that next morning accused 1 was fetched by P.W. 3 from his house and that they came to the bridge and that they were talking to a spectacled gentleman and that they left together to Chittoor and that in the evening he learnt that accused 1 was arrested by the Police and was in remand