TILKU ALIAS TILAK SINGH Vs THE STATE OF UTTARAKHAND as on 06 February 2025
The Supreme Court recently acquitted a man accused of kidnapping a minor girl, ruling that the girl had willingly left with him and was living with him as his wife. The Court found that the essential elements of “taking” or “enticing” a minor away from the lawful guardian were not met, leading to the acquittal. A bench of Justices BR Gavai and K Vinod Chandran
Court relied on S. Vardarajan v. State of Madras had an occasion to consider almost similar facts that arise for consideration in the present case .
“7. …..It will thus be seen that taking or enticiting away a minor out of the keeping of a lawful guardian is an essential ingredient of the offence of kidnapping. Here, we are not concerned with enticement but what we have to find out is whether the part played by the appellant amounts to “taking” out of the keeping of the lawful guardian of Savitri. We have no doubt that though Savitri had been left by S. Natarajan at the house of his relative K. Nataranjan she still continued to be in the lawful keeping of the former but then the question remains as to what is it which the appellant did that constitutes in law “taking”. There is not a word in the deposition of Savitri from which an inference could be drawn that she left the house of K. Natarajan at the instance or even a suggestion of the appellant. In fact she candidly admits that on the morning of October 1st, she herself telephoned to the appellant to meet her in his car at a certain place, went up to that place and finding him waiting in the car got into that car of her own accord. No doubt, she says that she did not tell the appellant where to go and that it was the appellant himself who drove the car to Guindy and then to Mylapore and other places. Further, Savitri has stated that she had decided to marry the appellant. There is no suggestion that the appellant took her to the Sub Registrar’s office and got the agreement of marriage registered there (thinking that this was sufficient in law to make them man and wife) by force or blandishments or anything like that. On the other hand the evidence of the girl leaves no doubt that the insistence of marriage came from her side. The appellant, by complying with her wishes can by no stretch of imagination be said to have taken her out of the keeping of her lawful guardian. After the registration of the agreement both the appellant and Savitri lived as man and wife and visited different places. There is no suggestion in Savitri’s evidence, who, it may be mentioned had attained the age of discretion and was on the verge of attaining majority that she was made by the appellant to accompany him by administering any threat to her or by any blandishments. The fact of her accompanying the appellant all along is quite consistent with Savitri’s own desire to be the wife of the appellant in which the desire of accompanying him wherever he went was course implicit. In these circumstances we find nothing from which an inference could be drawn that the appellant had been guilty of taking away Savitri out of the keeping of her father. She willingly accompanied him and the law did not cast upon him the duty of taking her back to her father’s house or even of telling her not to accompany him. She was not a child of tender years who was unable to think for herself but, as already stated, was on the verge of attaining majority and was capable of knowing what was good and what was bad for her…….”
Court finds that prosecutrix age was between 16 to 18 years of age was very much in the age of understanding as to what was right and wrong for her. From the evidence of the prosecutrix itself, it will be clear that she had voluntarily gone along with the appellant herein, travelled to various places and also resided as husband and wife at Dehradun. In that view of the matter, court find that the learned Single Judge of the High Court was not justified in upholding the conviction for the offences punishable under Sections363 and 366 of the IPC. the appeal is allowed. The judgment and order passed by the High Court of Uttarakhand dated 8th March 2013 in Criminal Appeal No.140 of 2003 is quashed and set aside. The appellant was acquitted of the charges he was charged with.
