RASHA RANJAN HALDAR Vs. INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I cannot say that this case was very satisfactorily handled in the Court below or that the materials which wore really conclusive of the single point urged before the learned Judge were placed before him. But the decision arrived at seems, nevertheless, to be correct.

(2.) The appellant was a Poliee Constable attached to the Rajpur Outpost within the Police Station, Sonarpur, District 24 Parganas. It appears that the higher authorities had some information that constables on traffic duty were realising illegal gratification for allowing lorries which were dangerously loaded to pass unchallenged. A plan was then devised for detecting delinquent constables in the actual commission of the offence. On a particular day two high-ranking Police Officers, one of them the Deputy Superintendent himself, got into a lorry, loaded heavily with straw, and concealed themselves in the middle of the vehicle. When the lorry was nearing the Rajpur market, the appellant is said to have flashed a torchlight at the driver at which the latter stopped the vehicle and went down to meet the appellant. He had previously been provided with some coins painted with green dye. He paid the appellant a sum of Rs. 1-8-0 in such painted coins and it is said that the dye was transferred to the appellant's palm when he unsuspectingly received the coins. The means of detection having thus been completed, the two Police Officers got clown from the lorry and disclosed themselves. They caught hold of the appellant and took him to the nearest police outpost Thereafter, proceedings were commenced against the appellant on a charge of gross misconduct, the misconduct being that, on the date in question, he had demanded and received illegal gratification from the driver of the lorry in which the Police Officers had been travelling.

(3.) The appellant's defence was the usual one of planting. He submitted that he had not flashed any torch-light at all, nor made any other signs to indicate that he wished to be bribed. He was only proceeding to the outpost for reporting himself for the night duty and had stopped at a betel shop on the way, when a coolie of the lorry came up to him and tried to force something into his hands. The coolie, it was said, was quickly followed by two Officers who placed him under arrest and took him to the police station.