JUDGMENT :- The appellants have been convicted under Sections 363 and 366 I. P. C. by a Civil and Sessions Judge of Kanpur and sentenced to 3 years' R. I. and 4 years' R. I. It is alleged that a girl named Shubratan, under 18 years in age, had been kidnapped by the appellants from the lawful guardianship of her father Maqdoom. The father died before the trial but his statement before the Committing Magistrate was admitted at the trial under Section 33 of the Indian Evidence Act.

2. The girl had given out her age, in the witness box, as 20 years on 6-8-1963, but her statement has been rightly disbelieved by the learned Sessions' Judge in view of the opinions of Dr. G. C. Agarwal and lady Dr. C. Mitra, given after examination of X-ray plates of the joints of the girl's limbs, and the unchallenged statement of the father in the committing Magistrate's court. At the time of the alleged occurrence, round about 18th of June, 1962, the girl must have been between 14 and 15 years. The girl was living before her alleged kidnapping, under the lawful guardianship of her father Maqdoom in Mohalla Baqarganj in the city of Kanpur.

3. The prosecution case was that on 18-6-1962, when the father of the girl went out to purchase some vegetables, the girl was fetched from the house of Smt. Asma, appellant, the wife of Ramzani appellant, who also lives nearby in the same Mohalla. The father did not find Km. Shubratan when he returned home from the vegetable market, but, when he called out, the girl came out from the nearby house of Ramzani and Sm. Asma. According to the prosecution case, Sm. Asma, appellant, took the girl again to her house at about noon. And then her husband Ramzani, according to the prosecution case, tried to persuade the girl to marry the appellant Ayub.

4. As the father could not find the girl after a search all over, he lodged a F. I. R. six days later, on 24-6-1962, at 7 A.M., at police station Babu Purwa. In this F. I. R., Maqdoom, the father, expressed his belief that Ramzani and Ayub, who had their shops near the house of Maqdoom, must have enticed the girl as they used to come frequently to his house. He also stated that he had, on the suggestion of Ramzani appellant, gone to look for the girl at the houses of relations but could not find her. He also stated that the girl had left on the evening of 18th June, 1962 after telling her blind mother that she was going to the market. No fact, apart from the friendship of the family with Ramzani and Ayub appellants and that the girl had come out from the house of Ramzani on the morning of 18th of June, 1962, on being called by the father, was given in the F. I. R. to suggest that the girl had been kidnapped by the appellants. The girl was alleged to have been found at 10-15 A.M., on 24-6-1962, shortly after the lodging of the F. I. R., at the house of Ramzani as a result of the information said to have been given by an informant. It was alleged that Km. Shubratan herself opened the door of the house and the appellants Ramzani and Ayub were also found inside the house.

5. The appellants denied that the girl was recovered from the house of Ramzani. The appellants Ramzani and Ayub stated that the Station Officer had taken them from their shops in the meat market and Sm. Asma denied any connection with the whole affair. The appellant Ayub stated that Maqdoom, the father of the girl, wanted to marry her to an old man and that the girl herself was not agreeable to this and had come to his shop, of her own accord, and had asked him to marry her after representing her age to be 19 years. He stated that he told the girl that he would be willing to marry her if she would make a statement before a Court and obtain the consent of her father. He alleged that the girl was beaten and turned out of the house by the father himself when she told him what she wanted. Ayub alleged that the father had brought the girl along with him from her maternal grand-father's house and had got the appellants im

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