HABEEB MOHAMMAD Vs. STATE OF HYDERABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave from the judgment of the High Court of Judicature of Hyderabad upholding the conviction of the appellant by the Special Judge, Warangal, appointed under Regulation X of 1359-fasli, under sections 243, 248, 368, 282 and 124 of the Hyderabad Penal Code (corresponding to sections 302, 307, 436, 342 and 148, I.P.C) and the respective sentences passed under these sections against him.

(2.) The case for the prosecution which has been substantially accepted by the Special Judge and by the majority of the High Court is that the appellant was in the year 1947 the Subedar of Warangal within the State of Hyderabad, that on the 9th December 1947 he proceeded to the village of Gurtur situate within his jurisdiction at about 10 A. M. along with a number of police officials and a posse of police force ostensibly to raid the village in order to arrest certain bad characters, that when a party of villagers, 60 or 70 in number came out to meet him in order to make representations, he ordered the policemen to open fire on the unarmed and inoffensive villagers, as a result of which tailor Venkayya and Yelthuri Rama died of bullet wounds on the spot. Yelthuri Eradu and Pilli Malladu received bullet wounds and died subsequently, five others received bullet wounds but they recovered, that the appellant gave match boxed and directed the policemen to go into the village and set fire to the houses as a result of which 191 houses were burnt down; that about 70 of the villagers were tied up under the orders of the appellant and taken to Varadhanapeth and were kept under wrongful confinement for some time and thereafter some were released and others were taken to Warangal jail and lodged there; that these acts were done by the appellant without legal authority or legal justification and that he and the two absconding accused were therefore guilty of the offences of murder, attempt to murder, arson, etc.

(3.) The prosecution produced 21 witnesses in support of their case, while the accused examined a solitary witness in defence. The firing by the police, the death of the persons concerned, the arrest of some of the villagers and the burning down of the village houses on the date and the time in question are facts which were not disputed. But what was alleged by the defence was that the appellant did not give the order to fire, that the villagers were violent and attempted to attack the officials and the police by force and therefore whatever was done in self-defence. It was said that the raiders were arrested in due course of law and that the destruction of their houses by fire was committed by the villagers themselves, and that the appellant had gone to the village only to arrest Congress mischief-mongers and to maintain and enforce law and order.