IN RE : ASHOKE BHAGAT Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) For having been found in illegal possession of non-duty paid ganja the petitioner was convicted u/s 46A(c) of the Bengal Excise Act, 1909 (Act for short) and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 3 months and to pay a fine of Rs. 2000.00 in default, to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 3 months more, by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hooghly. As the appeal preferred against the said order of conviction and sentence was dismissed, the petitioner has filed this application in revision.

(2.) As both the learned Courts below considered the entire evidence adduced during trial and on a proper appraisal thereof found the petitioner guilty of the offence alleged against him, we cannot disturb the said concurrent finding of fact, particularly when no legal infirmity has been brought to our notice in arriving at the said finding. The conviction of the petitioner must therefore be upheld.

(3.) That brings us to the question of sentence. At the time the petitioner committed the offence, the minimum sentence prescribed under the Act therefore was substantive imprisonment for 3 months and fine, but during the pendency of the case, in 1984, the law was amended and the minimum sentence now prescribed for the same offence is imprisonment for one month, but the Court for special and adequate reasons may impose a sentence, even less than that. The above beneficial provision regarding sentence in the ex post facto law will be available to the petitioner, in view of the Supreme Court judgement in the case of T. Barai Vs. Henry Aw Hoe reported in AIR 1983 SC page 150. In other words for adequate and sufficient reasons this Court can in this case impose a sentence of imprisonment for less one month.