Conviction under Section 370 IPC unsustainable where victim and investigating officer are not examined.

The Appellant was convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge-II, Latehar, for human trafficking under Section 370 of the IPC.

The prosecution alleged that the Appellant lured three minor girls from their village to Delhi under the pretext of taking them to her house, where they were allegedly forced into labor.

The First Information Report (FIR) was lodged on June 11, 2012, approximately one year after the girls went missing.

During the trial, the prosecution examined five witnesses; however, the victim girls were never produced or examined.

P.W.-1 (informant) admitted in cross-examination that the girls left of their own will and that he had no further complaint as his daughter had returned.

The Trial Court found the Appellant guilty and sentenced her to seven years of rigorous imprisonment.

1. Whether the ingredients of trafficking under Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code were established in the absence of testimony from the victims and the Investigating Officer.

2. Whether the unamended version of Section 370 IPC applies to the case given the date of the alleged offense.

The court applied Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code as it stood prior to the 2013 amendment, since the FIR was registered in 2012.

The unamended Section 370 (Trafficking of persons) requires proof that a person was recruited, transported, harboured, or received for the purpose of exploitation through means such as threat, force, abduction, fraud, or inducement, and crucially, such acts must be against the will of the victim.

The Court noted that the victim girls—the most critical witnesses—were not examined, nor was there any evidence suggesting they were forced to work against their will.

The absence of the Investigating Officer’s testimony further weakened the procedural integrity of the case.

The Court observed that the testimony of the parents (P.W.-1, P.W.-2, and P.W.-3) actually undermined the prosecution, as they admitted the girls had gone "at their own will" and that the witnesses had not personally seen the Appellant taking the girls away.

Furthermore, the prosecution failed to identify specific places or persons in Delhi where the alleged exploitation occurred. Consequently, the Court categorized this as a case of "no evidence".

The High Court allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment of conviction dated January 24, 2019, and the order of sentence dated January 28, 2019. The Appellant was acquitted and discharged from her bail bonds.