PANDARA NADAR Vs. JAGADEESAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I am of the view that in this appeal against the order of acquittal, the Respondent -accused is entitled to an acquittal. The case of the complainant (Appellant) is that at the end of July (30th July, 1967) at about 2 a.m. two police constables took him from his house to Palakarai police station. He was beaten there. The Respondent -accused came there and took him to Woraiyur police station. The accused asked him whether he knew Subbiah. The complainant, (P. W. 2) denied knowledge. The Respondent locked him up is the lock -up and went away. P.W. 2 continued to remain in the police lock up about 15 days. P. W. 1 came on 12th August, 1967 and searched the lock up Two Head constables were in police station at that time. They showed the complainant to P. W. 1 asked the head constables to take him out of lock up. They opened the lock up and P. W. 1 recorded complainant's name and his father's name. P W. 1 asked the head constable to lock him up again. He went away. The Respondent asked him to write -as he wrote and to post to P. W. 1 and the High Court and threatened him. He was taken to the High Court on 15th August, 1967. There he was asked to go away. The certified copy of the High Court's order is Ex, 1.

(2.) IT also emerges that when this complainant P. W. 2 was in the lock up at Woraiyur police station, his wife filed a habeas corpus petition and ultimately on 16th August, 1967 P. W. 2 was produced before the High Court and released. On these facts, the trial Magistrate District Magistrate (J) acquitted the Respondent -accused on the ground that there is some discrepancy in respect of the signed blank papers obtained from the complainant and the petitions signed as a result of the coercion exported on the complainant by the Respondent -accused. It is a puerile ground on which the acquittal is based. Even the other reasons are not convincing for the acquittal.

(3.) TAKING the third charge first, I asked the counsel for the Appellant (complainant) as to what part of the section he is relying on for his pressing the appeal for conviction of the Respondent accused for an offence under. Section 348 I.P.C. Mr. Panchapakesan relied on the ingredient of the section "whoever wrongfully confines any person for the purpose of exerting from the person confined,...any information which may lead to the detection of an offence"... This section contains very many other fundamentally different ingredients. It is true there is some amount of evidence relating to the part of section now relied on by Mr. Panchapakesan. But unfortunately Charge No. 3 as framed by the District Magistrate is fundamentally different from that of the section on which the learned Counsel placed reliance in support of the important ingredients found in Charge No. 3. I find no material adduced by the prosecution in proof of Charge No. 3. on this ground alone the Respondent -accused is entitled to confirmation of the order of acquittal.