MAHIPAL SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision is directed against an order of the learned Additional Sessions Judge of Mainpuri, directing each of the applicants to pay a sum of Rs. 500/ - as penalty for the forfeiture of their surety bonds.

(2.) APPLICANTS had stood sureties in the amount of Rs. 2000/ - each for one Daya Ram who was an accused in the Sessions Trial No. 28 of 1962 pending before the Sessions Court at Mainpuri. 22nd of July 1963 was the date fixed for hearing of the trial but Daya Ram did not appear in Court. On that date his sureties, the two applicants, filed an application before the learned Sessions Judge stating therein that Daya Ram had been in jail since the last 1 years in connection with a case which had ended in his conviction from the Court of Sessions at Fatehgarh and that they had come to know that while he was being escorted by the police from District Jail Fatehgarh to his Court in connection with the ease he escaped from their custody and disappeared. The applicants, therefore, prayed that, as Daya Ram had escaped from the custody of the police, it was beyond their control to produce him in Court and the notice issued to them for producing him be discharged.

(3.) FROM the order under revision it is clear that while Daya Ram was being brought under police escort from Fatehgarh Jail to Mainpuri he jumped from train and ran away and he is absconding since then. This fact was brought to the notice of the learned Sessions Judge on the 22nd of July 1963 which was the date fixed for the presence of Daya Ram in his Court by the applicants. It was, therefore, the duty of the learned Sessions Judge to have made inquiries about this fact and them to have passed some suitable order regarding the forfeiture of the surety bonds. It is really strange that instead of following this obvious procedure, the learned Sessions Judge forfeited the bonds and postponed the consideration of the explanation offered by the applicants for their failure to produce Daya Ram in Court to a later date.