EMPEROR Vs. FAKIR MAHOMED RAMZAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the accused against his conviction on two charges under Sections 454 and 380 of the Indian Penal Code. On February 13, 1935, a theft was committed at a house in Dadyseth Agiary Lane. The police were called to the house, and they found the complainant, a woman named Kasturbai, there. She was asked to sleep somewhere else during the ensuing night, and the police then locked up the room in which the theft had taken place, and the next day they attended with the finger print bureau expert, who took the impressions of certain finger prints. He found a right thumb impression on a glass jar, and the imprint of a right index ringer on a box of jewellery. There was also on a glass door of the cupboard an impression of the palm of a hand, but that has not been identified. A photograph was subsequently taken of the thumb impression on the glass jar and of the impression of the right index finger on the jewellery box, and those photographs are exhibits B and C, which have been enlarged: the enlargements are exhibits F-1a and F-2a. On February 25, a room in Bazar Gate Street was also burgled. The police were fetched, and as in the previous case, they brought the finger print expert, who found certain impressions. He found a left-thumb impression, which is exhibit D, on the glass of a cupboard door, and a palm impression on a drawer. On the evidence, and apart from that of the finger print expert, it would have been possible for persons who had been in the room after the theft to have left these impressions. As the procedure under the two offences appeared to be similar, a search was made amongst the finger-print records of the police, and it was discovered that the impressions taken on these two occasions corresponded with the finger prints of the present accused, which had been taken by the police on the occasion of a previous conviction, and accordingly the accused was arrested, and was tried by the Chief Presidency Magistrate, and convicted on both charges.

(2.) THE peculiarity of the case is that there is absolutely no evidence to connect the accused with either of the offences except the evidence of the finger prints. A witness named" Sitaram Baburao Rane was called on behalf of the prosecution, who said that he was a finger-print expert attached to the finger-print bureau, and had been there for twelve years. He then described to the Court how he took the photographs of the impressions to which I have referred and which were found on the scene of these two offences, and then he produced finger prints of the accused which had been taken on the occasion of the accused's previous conviction, and also fresh finger prints which were taken after the accused was arrested on this occasion, the latter being exhibit L, and the former, exhibit K. THE witness then said that there were eighteen identical ridge characteristics in nature and sequence between the left thumb impression taken in the room where the second offence was committed and the impression of the left thumb of the accused taken by the police after his arrest, and the witness further said that it is impossible to find so many as eighteen characteristics identical in the finger prints of two persons, that is to say, his evidence is that having regard to the similarities which he found between the finger prints-found in the place of offence and the finger print of the accused, it was impossible that anybody but the accused could have made the finger prints in the place of the second offence. THE witness also stated with reference to the right thumb impression and the impression of the right index finger taken on the occasion of the first offence, that there were fifteen points of similarity between the right thumb, and seven in respect of the right index finger, and the finger prints of the accused and that it must have been the accused who made the marks found on the scene of the first offence. From that evidence it appears that the accused was present in both of these rooms at about the time of the respective offences, from which I think that it follows as a necessary inference that he is the person who committed the offences. It is not suggested that he had an innocent object in being in either of those two rooms.