MISRA SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under Section 14 of the Terrorists Affected Areas (Special courts) Act, 1984. The learned Additional Judge, special court, Bhatinda by his order and judgment dated 22-4-85 convicted the appellant under Section 25 of the Arms Act and sentenced him to suffer rigorous imprisonment for six months and to pay a fine of Rs. 100. 00. in default of payment of fine. further rigorous imprisonment for fifteen days. The prosecution case in short is that on 31-1-84 the accused was arrested by Assistant Sub-Inspector. Bakhshish Singh and other police officials near the drain bridge in the area of village Seaon (sic) under suspicious circumstances. A personal search was conducted on the body of the accused and 10 kgs. of opium was recovered from a carried by the accused and one country made pistol and two live cartridges of 12 bore were also found in his possession. Such arms were kept without any licence. Two separate eases were registered against the accused. one under the Opium Act and the other under the arms Act. After obtaining necessary sanction from the Additional District Migistrate, Bhatinda, the accused was prosecuted under the Arms Act before the learned Special Judge and in that proceedings. the aforesaid conviction and sentence were passed. The learned Judge has come to the finding that the prosecution case has been clearly established by theevidence adduced by the police officials and in cross-examination nothing turned out to contradict them. The accused did not make any statement under section 313 of Cr. P. C. but he denied his complicity in the offence. It appears that one Riip Singh DW-2 and two doctors namely Dr. Rajinder Kumar Garg dw-1 and Dr. K. C. Goyal DW-3 were examined on behalf of the accused. From the evidence adduced by the doctors it transpires that in the police custody the accused, therefore, fails and is dismissed. It. however, appears that the incident had taken place in january, 1984 and by an order passed by this court on 17-6-85, the appellant was released on bail. Considering the aforesaid fact and also considering the fact that long time has since lapsed, we think that justice will be met if the sentence is reduced to the period of four months. We accordingly reduce the sentence to that extent. This appeal is dismissed with the aforesaid modification of the sentence.