BEANT SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the judgment dated 27/4/1994 passed by the Designated court, Ludhiana in Sessions Case No. 93 of 10/2/1993. By the aforesaid judgment, the appellant Beant Singh has been convicted under Section 5 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as 'tada'). The appellant has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment for five years and to pay a fine of Rs. 500. 00, in default of such payment, a further imprisonment for one month.

(2.) The prosecution case in short is that on 11/5/1991 the accused-appellant was apprehended by the police party headed by Head Constable Sanjhi Ram in the area near canal minor bridge Sidhwan Branch, Village Ayali Kalan. The said area is admittedly a notified area under TADA. The accused was found at the time of his apprehension in possession of a. 12 bore single barrel gun along with two live cartridges but the barrel and also the butt of the gun were cut short. The said gun was later on sent to an armourer for testing and the armourer has submitted his report by testing the said gun that though he had not actually fired the gun, the gun was in working condition. Considering the evidence adduced in the said case, the learned Designated court came to the finding that the accused was in possession of the said arms and the ammunition and accordingly the aforesaid order of conviction and sentence under Section 5 TADA was passed by the learned Designated court.

(3.) At the hearing of this appeal, the learned counsel for the appellant has contended that in the instant case, the evidence against the appellant is highly unsatisfactory and on such evidence no conviction was warranted. He has submitted that it has not been established that the said gun was manufactured by any established factory. The alleged number of the gun was only mentioned inruqa, FIR and other contemporaneous documents. But such number can be easily manipulated by inscribing the same on the barrel. Learned counsel for the appellant has further submitted that admittedly in the first information report and in the ruqa at the time of seizing the said gun, the name of the manufacturer of the gun was not mentioned. Similarly, the make of the gun was also not mentioned in the communication sent by Superintendent of Police to the District Magistrate and in the request of remand of the accused to police custody. Later on, in some of the documents, name of the manufacturer of the gun was mentioned but curiously enough, in all such documents the name of the manufacturer was mentioned only in the last line. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that normally when the number of the gun was mentioned to indicate its identity it was only natural that the name of the manufacturer of the gun should be mentioned along with the number but such mentioning had not been done even in the documents where the name of the manufacturer was mentioned. He has submitted that in some of the later documents, in order to establish the identity of the gun, attempts were made to incorporate the name of the manufacturer only in the last line of the document. Accordingly, no reliance should be placed on the documents containing the name of the manufacturer of the gun.