DAL CHAND Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by Dal Chand and Pitam against their conviction of an offence under Section 395, I. P. C. and the sentence of seven years' rigorous imprisonment passed upon each of them by the learned Additional Sessions Judge of Bareilly.

(2.) IT appears that eight persons in all were put upon their trial. Six of them were acquitted and the two appellants were convicted and sentenced.

(3.) ON the night of the 27th of February, 1950 -- it was a moonlit night -- about midnight an armed dacoity appears to have been committed at the house of one Lala Ram in village angadpur Khamaria. It is the prosecution case that some twenty persons participated in this dacoity. The family of Lala Ram is a well-to-do family of Chamars, the head of which is Lala ram. He has three other brothers viz. Jhamman, Hod and Birbal, prosecution witnesses, and a son named Ram Lal P. W. 1. On the night when the dacoity was committed, Lala Ram was not at his house but was at his Kolhu, while his three brothers and the son Ram Lal as also the ladies of his family were sleeping inside the house. The dacoits are said to have been armed with guns and lathis. Inside the house a lantern is said to have been burning at the time and the dacoits are alleged to have used electric torches and also burnt 'phoos' at some places inside the house. The dacoity is said to have been committed for about an hour and a half. Villagers on hearing the outcries and the sound of gun fire appear to have collected in front of Lala Ram's house. They are said to have burnt three heaps of 'phoos' on different sides outside the house of Lala Ram. It is the prosecution case that there was an exchange of lathi fight between the villagers on one side and the dacoits on the other. When the dacoits retreated, they were given a chase by the vil lagers. About a furlong away from the dacoited house, near the fields of two persons, viz. Mansukh Dhobi and Kesri Teli, there was a regular lathi fight as the result of which some of the dacoits received injuries and one dacoit named Ram Lal Sonar of village Bhowa, who was seriously injured, was captured by the villagers. This man soon became unconscious and remained in that condition till he died in. the District Hospital on the 1st of March 1950. He was left in charge of the Mukhia and other villagers while Ram Lal P. W. 1, son of Lala Ram, proceeded to the police station Bhuta and made the first information report at 7 A. M. The police station is some four miles away from village Khamaria. In this report, three persons including the injured dacoit who had been caught by the villagers and the appellant Dal Chand (Dalla) were named as the culprits who committed this dacoity along with fifteen or twenty other unknown persons.