BUDUL AND OTHERS Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by Budul and Pancham who in a jury trial have been convicted under Sec. 392, I. P. C. and sentenced to five year's rigorous imprisonment each. The charge against them was that on 23-3-1952, at about 9 p.m. they committed robbery from railway gumti No. 5 in village Husainpur, which was occupied by one Ramphal a cabin man. The gumti in question was situate near railway station Manauri.

(2.) In appeal it has been contended that the verdict of the jury was vitiated by misdirection and nondirection and it has therefore ended in miscarriage of justice.

(3.) A report in writing was submitted by Ramphal to the Station Officer of police station Puramufti in which he alleged that four persons forcibly entered into his cabin at about 9 O'clock in the night and by putting him to fear they took away from him a kurta and Rs. 6/8/- in cash. No names were specified in that report. The report was the report of cognizable offence under the provisions of Sec. 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The substance of the information should have been entered in the book of reports maintained at the Thana or in the general diary, but such a procedure had not been adopted in the case. Ommission to enter in the general or station diary will not, however, be an illegality vitiating the trial, but it would have an important bearing on the case if the very substance on which the prosecution was founded was assailed from the other side and there were indications to point to the direction that the prosecution story was not an absolutely true story. It is needless to point out that the first information report is not substantive evidence and that it is not evidence of the facts which it mentions. It can only be used for corroboration under Sec. 157 of the Evidence Act, or for contradiction under Sec. 145 of the Act of statement made by the informant subsequently in court. That aspect of the matter had not been laid by the Judge before the jury when the written information Ex.P-2 by Ramphal to the Station Officer was taken in evidence.