BABOO KHAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Babu Khan, the applicant in this criminal revision, has been, convicted by a first class Magistrate of Budaun for an offence under Section 419, I. P. C. and has been sentenced to nine months' R. I. and a fine of Rs. 100/-. His conviction and sentence were confirmed in appeal by the Second Temporary Civil and Sessions Judge of Budaun.

(2.) The prosecution allegations were that on 9-6-1959 the accused-applicant came to the village of Shekhupur, pretending to be Dr. Mohan Lal, the famous eye specialist of Aligarh, and induced the complainant Zalim to allow him to perform an operation on the right eye of Zalim's 12-year old son Rajpal. The boy had previously been shown to a certain Dr. Gupta, who had declared his eye to be incurable but the accused assured Zalim that he could restore sight to the eye by performing the operation. The accused made an incision in the boy's eye-lid and extracted some whitish matter and then bandaged up the eye and told Zalim to bring Rs. 32/- to his camp at Ujhani. Next day Zalim accordingly went to Ujhani but could not fhld any trace of the camp that had been referred to by the accused. Eventually he met the accused, who said that he had taken a house on hire and asked for payment of Rs, 32/-; but by now Zalim's suspicions had been aroused and he took the accused off to the police station and lodged a report.

(3.) The accused-applicant denied that he had ever personated Dr. Mohan Lal of Aligarh. He admitted, however, that he carried on the business of treating eye disorders as a kind of unregistered practitioner and that he had performed an operation on the eye of Zalim's son Rajpal. According to him, there was a tumour on the eye-lid, which he had removed; but after the operation, when he demanded his fee of Rs. 20/-, Zalim avoided payment and in Ujhani next day when he repeated the demand a quarrel took place, and he was then taken off to the police station and implicated on a false charge.