Case in Brief:

Ontimi Missamma, aged 50 years, W/o Ontimi Daveedu, R/o Near Satyagouri Theatre, C/o Lakshmi Lightings, Main road, Anaparthi, SC Mala by caste has purchased Commercial Lighting Set from the accused Grandhi Prasad Rao, aged 35 years, S/o Grandhi Subbarao, R/o Anaparthi Main Road, Anaparthi, East Godavari, OC Komiti by caste for Rs.6,00, 000/- and paid complete amount.  They have entered into a contract that the accused would divert all his customers to the victim and would not carry on the same business in that area at least for one year.  But the accused soon after he has sold his business assets to the victim, started to carry on the same business in the same area with the same customers.  Also he hired the equipment from the victim thrice and failed to pay the rent amounting to Rs.1, 50, 000/-.  

The victim has given a complaint 6 months back for the rent amount to be paid by the accused but the case was not registered and no further action was taken.  After DSS has intervened complaint was lodged for the breach of contract.

Sonia Devi w/o Raju Ram belonging to Chamar caste in Mondiha village, Nokha Ps and Taluk, Rohtas district, Bihar, was gang raped and killed by the perpetrators Sunil Pandey s/o Vidya Pandey, Ramniwas Pandey s/o Rajdev Pandey, and Suredra Pandey s/o late Jagarnath Pandey from Manipur village, Maudiha post office, Nokha police station in Rohtas district, Bihar, on one of the days between February 14 and 17 in the year 2006. The deceased was the secretary of the women self help group. Her husband was a wage labourer. She was a lady of social orientation and bold in nature.

Once she had gone to attend the marriage ritual of the son of Munmun Pandey at Manipur village. After the ritual had been over she was on the way back her home accompanied with Surender Pandey, the brother of Munmun Pandey on 14/02/2006 at 11pm. She did not reach her home. On the next day, the villagers found looking at the destruction of the mustard field, that late Sonia Devi was gang raped in the field and murdered. And so the father in law of the deceased went to the police station to lodge complaint, which was registered No. 39/06 u/s 302 and 34 IPC against the rapists Ramniwas Pandey, Sunil Pandey and Surendra Pandey, on 16/02/2006. The police came and claimed a plate, broken bangles, slippers and her artificial hair along with food from the mustard field. On 17/02/2006 at 8am people saw the dead body of Sonia Devi in the canal at Jokhinipur. The information was given to the police and the police took the body to a hospital in Sasaram for the postmortem report.

 Under the leadership of the secretary of Navjeevan Vikas Kendra, sister Jyotsana all the members of the women self help group staged a Dharna at the police station. As a result the police arrested the culprits on 02/04/2006. Since the perpetrators had nexus with the police, after bribing them they came out of the jail after three days on 05/04/2006. All accused bailed out. No compensation to victim.

Doongar Sikrai village has 40 Dalit families and 90 non Dalit families. Out of these 90 families mostly are Brahmins. Manbi Devi has three children and her husband (Man Singh) has gone abroad for job and working as a laborer there. Manbi Devi lives separately from in laws joint family. On February 8, 2006 at about 1 p.m. Manbi went to mustard field owned by Somotya Bairwa to pluck some mustard leaves. All of a sudden Santosh s/o Dwarka Prasad Sharma turned up to the field and clutched Manbi Devi in his arms, pushed her on the ground. Manbi Devi did not understand this sudden attack & what Santosh is going to do with her.

Santosh clutched her mouth with his hands and stripped her lower garment and brutally raped her. Manbi Devi literally screamed but Santosh did not leave her & threatened to kill her and her family members if she will disclose this to anyone. Listening Manbi’s cries other field workers namely Somotya & Prem Chand rushed to her. Santosh ran away before Somatya & Prem Chand arrived to the place of incidence. Manbi Devi narrated the whole incident to them and same day Manbi Devi went to police station to lodge an FIR against the accused Santosh. Knowing that Manbi Devi has lodged FIR against him, he started threatening Manbi and her family members to take back the complaint otherwise or they will be killed.

Accused and his family with the help of community members and some powerful personnel started creating pressure over Manbi Devi and family. They pressurized her family, specially her father to compromise with accused and close the case and however they succeed in it with the help of Local leader Mr. Ram Kishan Jatav and one Advocate Ms. Seema Punjabi. They influenced Manbi’s father and compelled Manbi to compromise with him. Manbi protested at her level and denied to obey the wicked order of her father. Seeing Manbi’s attitude, her whole family stood against her and did not support her. She was pressurized and kept confined at her home. At last Manbi gave up; she killed her spirit and compromised with accused. Manbi’s father charged little amount of Rs. 30,000 from accused on account of compromise but after compromising he did not even receive it.  Manbi’s own family killed her voice and did not help her in coming forward against violence.

The offence was committed on February 8, 2006 and FIR was lodged on February 10, 2006 but the local police did not arrest the accused due to pressure from upper caste community people and top politicians. Many a times Manbi and her family presented memorandum to local police and Superintendent of Police to arrest Santosh Kumar but the local police arrested Santosh after seventy days of the incident on 29^th April 2006. With his power and pressure Santosh was out of bars and humiliated Manbi and her family to compromise. The police arranged medical examination of Manbi Devi on February 10, 2006 at 11 p.m.

The perpetrator’s family tried to build pressure on victim to compromise the case. Finally, the accused succeeded to get a written statement from victim’s family for compromise of case. The case was compromised in the court.