Madhya Pradesh High Court
Shriram Raghuvanshi vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 7 March, 2022
Author: Atul Sreedharan
Bench: Atul Sreedharan
1
The High Court Of Madhya Pradesh
MCRC No. 57140 of 2021
(SHRIRAM RAGHUVANSHI AND OTHERS Vs THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH AND OTHERS)
Jabalpur, Dated : 07-03-2022
Mr. Aman Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioners.
Mr. S. K. Kashyap, learned Government Advocate for the State-respondent
no.1.
Issue notice to respondent no.2 by both the modes on payment of process fee within three days. The notice be made returnable within four weeks.
Heard on I.A. No.20487/2021, which is an application for stay.
Petitioner no.1 is the prime accused in this case and is the husband of respondent no.2. Petitioner no.2 is father of petitioner no.1 and petitioner no.3 is brother of petitioner no.1. Respondent no.2 is the alleged wife of petitioner no.1.
The case of the prosecution is that petitioner no.1 is married to respondent no.2 and that he has been mentally and physically harassing respondent no.2 along with the other two petitioners by asking Rs.10,00,000/- (Rupees Ten Lacs) in dowry and by not discharging his duties as her husband.
Learned counsel for the petitioners has drawn the attention of this court to Annexure A/2, which is a legal notice dated 6.10.2020 sent to petitioner no.1 by Mohd. Saleem Qureshi, Advocate, on behalf of respondent no.2. In the said notice, the main allegation is that petitioner no.1 has been promising marriage to respondent no.2 and has established physical relationship with her and is not fulfilling his promise of marrying respondent no.2. The demand made in the notice is that within 15 days of the receipt of the said notice, petitioner no.1 shall marry respondent no.2 in accordance with Hindu rites and ceremonies.
Thereafter, learned counsel for petitioners has read out the complaint given by respondent no.2 to the police on the basis of which the FIR has been registered. The said complaint has been made on 10.3.2021 in which inter alia she says that she got married to petitioner no.1 on 12.11.2019 at "Pachpan Seedhi Mandir", Tahsil Silwani, district Raisen. She has also given an affidavit to the police stating that fact. Respondent no.2 is the sole deponent in the said affidavit. There is no document along with the charge-sheet which reflects that a marriage 2 ever took place between petitioner no.1 and respondent no.2. The seizure memo also reflects that from respondent no.2, an affidavit executed by her relating to marriage and a list of articles given in dowry have been seized.
Learned counsel for the petitioners also submits that respondent no.2 was earlier married to one Mr. Sanjeev Jain with whom she has two children and she is now black-mailing petitioner no.1 and that no marriage has been effected between petitioner no.1 and respondent no.2. He has also stated that the statements of witnesses are all cyclostyled and identical to each other.
This court went through the 161 Cr.P.C. statements of the witnesses namely, Mrs. Rabia Khan, Mr. Khaleel Ahmed, Mr. Gulab Sen and Mr. Chatrapal Prajapati. All these 161 Cr.P.C. statements are identical and copy-paste documents. All these documents reflect that none of these witnesses have personal knowledge with regard to the marriage of petitioner no.1 and respondent no.2 and the same is based upon the version given to them by respondent no.2. In the charge-sheet, there are no photographs of any kind of marriage having been effected between the parties or the certificate issued either by a religious body or institution which conducts marriage between the parties or any document certifying respondent no.2 as wife of petitioner no.1 under the Special Marriage Act.
Under the circumstances, in view of what has been stated and considered herein above, till further orders, the proceedings in RCT No.5426/2021 (State v. Shriram Raghuvanshi and others) pending in the Court of learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Bhopal, shall remain stayed.
List this case for final disposal at the motion hearing stage on top of the list on 27.4.2022.
(ATUL SREEDHARAN) JUDGE ps PRASHANT SHRIVASTAVA 2022.03.08 12:30:38 +05'30'