STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. YAKUB IBRAHIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal, by special leave, against the acquittal of the appellant, from a charge framed on 21-9-1967 as follows : "That you on or about the 31st day of March 1967 at about 9.30 p.m. were found in State Transport Corporation Workshop at Naroda in Ahmedabad, and you are a foreigner and you had come from Pakistan and you had been permitted to stay in" India till 20th September, 1958, by Assistant Secretary to the Government of Bombay and did not depart from India before expiring of that permit issued to you by No. 19904 dated 6-12-1967 before the date 20th September 1958 and remained in India and thereby you contravened the provisions of clause 7(iii) of Foreigners Order 1948 and thereby committed an offence punishable under sec. 14 of Foreigners Act 1946 and within my cognizance".

(2.) The above mentioned charge was supported by the statement of Mahmadmiya, P. W. 2, Sub Inspector, Special Emergency Branch, Ahmedabad, showing that the appellant was working in Baroda Central State Transport Workshop when he was arrested as a consequence of the information that he was a Pakistani national who had come to India in 1955 on a Pakistani passport. The accused had produced his Pakistani passport (Ex. 11) dated 8th September, 1955. The prosecution had also relied upon an application for a visa made by the accused to the High Commissioner for India in Pakistan on 10th October, 1955, in which he had, inter alia, stated that he had migrated form India to Pakistan in 1950. Undoubtedly, the prosecution was handicapped in producing evidence to show when and how and with what intention the appellant had gone to Pakistan. It could only show how and when and on what passport he returned to this country.

(3.) The accused-respondent had produced credible evidence to prove; that he was born an Dhandhuka in the State of Gujarat on 15th May, 1936; that, he was living at Dhandhuka and attended School there until 1952 when he moved to Ahmedabad with his father; and, that he had gone to Pakistan in a State of anger while he was a minor, after a quarrel with his father who had driven him out of his house. The respondent denied that he had the intention of settling down in Pakistan. He asserted that within six months of his arrival in Pakistani he regretted having left India and tried to come back to his home. He alleged that, as he was unable to come home without a Pakistani passport, he had to apply for and got one. The respondent asserted that he was an Indian citizen when the Constitution came into force on 26th January, 1950, and that he had continued to be an Indian citizen thereafter as he had never migrated to Pakistan. His explanations about the passport and the visa application implied that he had obtained the passport by making false declarations and that the statement in the visa application, that he had migrated to Pakistan in 1950, was one of those untrue declarations which had been made only to obtain a passport. Probably he had to show under the law in Pakistan that he had settled down in Pakistan and become a Pakistani national before obtaining a Pakistani passport.