S A BABU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE revision petitioner S.A.Babu was accused In C.C.No.86 of 1984 on the file of the Judicial First Class Magistrate No.2, Tiruchirapalli.

(2.) LEARNED Magistrate, on the material placed before him, found the accused guilty under Sec.3(s) of the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966 (for short ?the Act?), convicted him there under and sentenced him to pay a fine of Rs.500 in default to simple imprisonment for three months.

(3.) EVEN as respects the other question, viz., the identity of the properties as ones belonging to the railways, apart from the testimony of P.W.1, there is also the testimony of P.W.3 Permanent Way Inspector, who had expertise knowledge by his long tenure in identification of the properties belonging to the railways an he, in fact, on inspection of the four A/c. chairs-M.O.i series-gave a certificate under Ex.P-3 opining that all those A/c. chairs were the properties belonging to the railways. His evidence would also disclose that of the four chairs excepting one, all the three chairs were bearing the insignia or marking of the railway properties and the marking of one of the chairs was even effaced. The eraser of the mark in one of the chairs, he would say, was not posing any problem for him to identify the chair, as the one belonging to the railways. From a mere look of that chair, he was able to say that the chair belonged to the railways, not with standing the fact that the chair was not containing any mark. Such evidence cannot be brushed aside, as one can very well visualise in day-to-day life that one can identify a property as his, by his long association with such property, not with standing the fact that such property is not bearing any identification mark, inasmuch as an intranslavable impression had been formed in his mind, so as to come to a conclusion that by a very look of such a property, he would be able to identify that it was his property. Applying such a principle, the evidence of P.W.3 as to the identity of one of the chairs as belonging to the railways, even in the absence of any mark thereon cannot be belittled. As such, both the Courts below have correctly sifted and placed reliance on the evidence of P.W.3 as those chairs belonging to the railways.