In a landmark judgment, the Kerala High Court recently ruled that pledging a wife’s gold ornaments without her consent constitutes a criminal breach of trust under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A single bench of Justice A Badharudeen delivered the order in Criminal Revision Petition No. 1006 of 2024, filed by a Kasaragod native challenging the trial court and the sessions court’s orders sentencing him to six months of simple imprisonment for the offence of criminal breach of trust.
The court observed that the husband was entrusted with the gold, which he dishonestly misappropriated and converted to his own use, violating his wife’s trust and causing her loss. The court held that the offence of criminal breach of trust was fully established and stated that there was no need to interfere with the decisions of the trial court and the appellate court.
The prosecution’s case is that the mother of the accused’s wife gifted her daughter 50 sovereigns of gold ornaments during her marriage. The wife entrusted this gold to her husband, asking him to keep it in a bank locker. However, without his wife’s knowledge, the accused pledged the gold to a financial company.
The trial court convicted the accused and sentenced him to six months of simple imprisonment. When the case was appealed in the sessions court, the court upheld the six-month sentence and additionally directed the accused to pay compensation of Rs 5,00,000 to his wife.