EMPEROR Vs. LASU JANU PAWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition by eight persons against whom a complaint has been filed by one Shamsuddin Mahamaddin Pathan, in the Court of Khan Bahadur B. H. Kazi, First Class Honorary Magistrate at Nasik, alleging the offence of cheating under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. The petitioners ask that the proceedings against them should be quashed or in the alternative transferred to the Court of some Magistrate at Mokhada in the Thana District. Mokhada is the nearest centre to the village of Poshera in which the petitioners reside, whereas the Court at Nasik in which the complaint has been filed is about 70 miles from Poshera.

(2.) SHAMSUDDIN Mahamaddin Pathan is a money-lender and a jungle contractor, and he alleges that he was cheated of Rs. 10 by each of the eight petitioners who are illiterate woodsmen and who were on July 5, 1945, the date of the alleged offence, in great hunger due to the scarcity.

(3.) ON November 6, the complainant gave evidence before the Magistrate for the purpose of inducing the Magistrate to take cognizance of his complaint, and in substance he repeated what is set out in his complaint, though he says nothing about lending money to them on their "personal security". Upon that evidence being given the Magistrate took cognizance of this case. A charitable society arranged for the petitioners to be legally represented before the Magistrate and has also arranged for their representation in this Court. In the petition the following is stated. The petitioners are ignorant aborigines of Mokhada Peta in the Thana District. That they have a primeval mode of life, habits and superstitions and are frequent victims of the outrages of jungle contractors who treat them worse than chattels. They are often subjected to forced labour in the jungles in the manufacture of charcoal. That an organisation called the "adivasi Seva Mandal" is formed to look after these aborigines with a view to educating them for some years past.