BASHIR Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MERE non observance of the provisions of (sic) rigorous imprisonment. His conviction and sentence was confirmed by the Sessions Judge in appeal. Aggrieved by that decision he has come up to this Court in revision.

(2.) THE case of the prosecution is that the night between 29 -6 -1954 and 30 -6 -1954 when Smt. Sharbati, her husband and he son Virendra Kumar were sleeping, Virendra Kumar was awakened by some noise at about 2.30 in the night. He awakened his mother, Smt. Sharbati. Both of them got down the stairs and found that the first story portion had been chained from inside. Therefore, they went to the other side of the house and found the window bars having been tampered with and up -turned. There, with the aid of a torch they saw that clothes and ornaments had been removed and boxes were lying open.

(3.) HIS defence was that (sic) arrested on the road cross(sic) the prosecution but that (sic) at the railway station.(sic) had been produced(sic) been arrested from(sic) that the defence v(sic) had been doing(sic) which the on(sic) might have g(sic) might be tr(sic) the railway(sic) he was(sic) accept(sic) arre(sic) alleged, much less proved with Ram Saran and I see no reason to differ from the findings arrived at by both the courts below. It has been very vehemently argued by the learned Counsel for the applicant that no proper questions were put to the accused under Section 342 and, therefore, the whole trial is vitiated. The main allegation against the accused was that these things had been recovered from his possession. Two questions were put to him. One was whether the goods which had been recovered from him and which were stolen goods were recovered from him or not and the second question was whether he had pawned the goods with Ram Saran or not and in reply he said 'no'. From the records it appears that while these questions were put there appears to be an omission of the exact mention of the exhibit numbers in those questions and there are blanks. On that ground it is argued that when there are blanks, only vague questions had been put to the accused and, therefore, it cannot be deemed to be a compliance under Section 342, Code of Criminal Procedure and it should be treated as if no questions had been put to him at all.