EMPEROR Vs. IBRAHIM IBOO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for revision by the accused who has been convicted of the offence of lying or loitering in a street, being a reputed thief and without being able to give a satisfactory account of himself under Section 112 (d) of the City of Bombay Police Act, 1902. The facts are shortly these : On the night of December 27, 1942, the police were waiting near Lal Baug, Parel, for making an Abkari raid. While they were so waiting, a taxi came there with tins of illicit liquor at about 4 a. m. The occupants of the taxi threw away three or four tins of liquor on the road and then ran away in the taxi. Then the taxi came back at about 4-15 a. m. and the accused who was accompanying the driver got down from the car and was about to pick up the tins when he was arrested. He was charged at first with being in possession of illicit liquor under the Bombay Abkari Act, but was acquitted after a trial on September 7, 1943. While the trial was pending, he was re-arrested on April 14, 1943, for being found loitering at about 4 a. m. on December 27, 1942, and he was tried for this offence before the Honorary Magistrate at Dadar.

(2.) THE only evidence against the accused consisted of two witnesses who are police constables. THE first constable deposed to the facts I have stated above. THE other constable deposed that he went after the accused had already been arrested. THE accused's case was that he had gone to the Mahim fair on the night in question and had come in a Victoria at the site at about 5 a. m. THEre was a man with him with his family. He admitted twelve previous convictions but contended that he was not loitering on the night in question. THE learned Magistrate held on this evidence that the charge against the accused was proved and convicted him of the offence under Section 112(d) and sentenced him to one month's rigorous imprisonment. This revisional application has been preferred against that conviction,'

(3.) FOR these reasons we make the rule absolute, set aside the conviction and sentence and direct that the accused be acquitted and discharged. The bail bond is cancelled.