3. …….whether the said offence under Section 376 IPC and the other offences under Sections 504 and 506 IPC fall within the ambit of ‘one series of acts so connected together as to form the same transaction’ for the purpose of trial together in terms of Section 220 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973?

22.1. A close look at the alleged events/acts bring to fore the basic feature that on 13.11.2015, the appellant and the respondent No. 2 were engaged for matrimonial alliance at their village Dangidhar, Tehsil Gairsain, District Chamoli but, the proposal of marriage did not materialise. However, the alleged acts of sexual relationship took place at Delhi in the months of February and March, 2016. The other alleged acts had been of the respondent No. 2 hurling abuses and extending threats in or around the month of November, 2016, which the appellant received over telephone at her village. The acts in question were neither proximate in time nor proximate in place; they were not of continuity either. Significantly, while the appellant had alleged that she submitted to the sexual acts because of the threat by the respondent No.2 to snap the proposed alliance but it had not been her case that the respondent No. 2 attempted to coerce her into the same physical relationship while hurling abuses or threatening to kill at the later part of time. Thus, it is difficult to find continuity of actions and community of purpose or design in two different acts leading to two different set of offences, i.e., one under Section 376 IPC and the other under Sections 504/506 IPC. Putting it differently, so far as the act leading to the offence of rape under Section 376 IPC is concerned, even as per the allegations of the appellant, that particular act was a completed one and the original design of subjecting the appellant to physical relations was accomplished at Delhi in the months of February and March, 2016. As noticed, there is no allegation of such an activity having continued later or having taken place at Chamoli or even any threat having been extended to the appellant to again submit to such an activity. Viewed from this angle too, the completed act concerning one offence (Section 376 IPC) could not have been connected with the other acts leading to other offences.

22.2. From whatever angle we examine the matter, in the given set of facts, it is difficult to sew the alleged acts together so as to form the same transaction. To put it in a simple idiom, the two alleged set of acts, one of sexual exploitation, leading to the offence of rape (Section 376 IPC) and another of hurling abuses and threats, leading to the offences of insult and intimidation (Sections 504/506 IPC), are just like chalk and cheese; they cannot be connected together so as to form the same transaction on the facts of this case.

23. For what has been discussed hereinabove, the view as taken by the learned Sessions Judge commends to us that on the facts of this case, the offence under Section 376 IPC as allegedly committed at Delhi, being different and distinct than the other offences and being not of same transaction, could not have been tried by the Courts at Chamoli. Therefore, the order passed by the learned Sessions Judge calls for no interference.

25. Upshot of the foregoing discussion is that on the facts and in the circumstances of this case, the alleged offence under Section 376 IPC and the other offences under Sections 504 and 506 IPC do not fall within the ambit of ‘one series of acts so connected together as to form the same transaction’ for the purpose of trial together in terms of Section 220 CrPC. Thus, the learned Sessions Judge, Chamoli had rightly discharged the accused-respondent No. 2 of the offence under Section 376 IPC for want of territorial jurisdiction.