BHIM SEN Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by leave granted by the High Court of Allhahabad presumably under Art. l34(1) (c) of the Constitution.

(2.) The facts are simple. Three persons including the appellant were, at the material time, parcel, porters at the railway station Manikpur in the district Banda of Uttar Pradesh. On the night of 18-6-1952, they were found by two watchmen of the Watch and Ward staff attached to the railway station, committing theft of certain packets of biscuits by breaking open a railway parcel containing those packets, which as parcel porters, they had occasion to handle. First information of the same was lodged, before the Sub-Inspector, Railway Police, by one Ram Prasad, Head Watchman:

(3.) To decide the question of jurisdiction thus raised it is necessary to notice the scheme of the U. P. Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 (U. P. Act 26 of 1947) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and a few relevant sections of the same. It may be mentioned that the Act appears to have undergone some amendments in the year 1952 and recently in 1955. These amendments have no application to the present case. Under the Act, as it stood at the time of the commission of the offence and the conviction therefor, the scheme thereunder is as follows: