Court File: ‘Wrongful confinement needn’t be physical,threat sufficient’

The prosecution had told the court that the girl had been brought to Delhi to work as a maid by a placement agency owner,and Jha had engaged her services from the agency in January 2010.

Placement agency owner Nepal Sardar had approached the Delhi High Court in March 2010 in a writ of habeas corpus after another girl,who had also been engaged by Jha,escaped and returned to the placement agency,complaining that she had been mistreated and that the 17-year-old girl had been kept in captivity.

The High Court directed the CBI to investigate the matter,and the missing girl was rescued from Rampal’s home in Belar Khan village,Jind,in Haryana in May.

The girl told the High Court that she had been forcibly taken to Haryana,where Rampal had paid Rs 55,000 to purchase her,and forcibly married and raped her repeatedly for two months.

The prosecution said the girl was also molested,tortured and threatened by another co-accused Subhash,who acted as a conduit in the sale and forcible marriage of the girl.

Senior public prosecutor Sanjay Kumar asked the court to award maximum sentence,stating that the court should “impose punishment befitting the crime so that the courts reflect the abhorrence of the crime”.

The court held all four accused guilty for various offences including criminal conspiracy,wrongful confinement,rape,criminal intimidation,outraging the modesty of a woman and kidnapping.

The court also dismissed a plea taken by the accused that the girl had remained in Rampal’s house for over two months without raising an alarm before any of the neighbours.

“Confinement need not necessarily be a confinement where the person is physically held within a circumscribed limit. To support a charge of wrongful confinement,proof of actual physical obstruction is not essential. It is the condition of the mind of the person confined,” ASJ Baweja said.

The judge held that the threat and intimidation that the girl had been kept under was sufficient to support the charge of wrongful confinement and other offences.

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