CUTTACK: Seven years after issuing a stay order, the Orissa High Court has declined to interfere in the criminal proceedings against a person for cohabitation with a woman deceitfully by inducing a belief of lawful marriage.
According to the case records, the victim of deceit had lodged an FIR with Gunupur police in Rayagada district on February 12, 2010. In her FIR, the victim alleged that one Ranjeet Sriram had cohabited with her by giving assurance of marriage.
Sriram continued to cohabit with her even after forcefully terminating her pregnancy, giving assurance of marriage. Ultimately, he backed out and told the victim that he did not know her and threatened of dire consequences. He also did not turn up at the panchayat meeting for discussion on marriage.
Acting on the complaint, police after investigation filed charge-sheet under Sections 493 (cohabitation caused by a man deceitfully inducing a belief of lawful marriage), 417 (punishment for cheating), 312 and 313 (miscarriage without consent of woman) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
Sriram then filed a petition in the Court of Adhoc Additional Sessions Judge, Gunupur for his discharge from the case as the facts constituting ingredients of the offence under Section 493 were not mentioned in the FIR. His plea was rejected on July 3, 2012.
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But when Sriram challenged it in the High Court, an interim stay order on the criminal proceedings was issued on July 30, 2012. His petition was pending all these years till the stay order was vacated and his plea dismissed on grounds of merit on August 13.
The Single Judge Bench of Justice SK Sahoo held that the factual scenario indicated that there were prima facie materials to attract the ingredients of offences in the prosecution case. “The principal object to the first information report is to set the criminal law into motion. Non-mentioning of some facts or details or meticulous particulars is not a ground to reject the prosecution case,” Justice Sahoo ruled.
“Law is well settled that the first information report is not the encyclopedia or be all and end all of the prosecution case. It is not a verbatim summary of the prosecution case,” Justice Sahoo added.