UDAYANATH SWAIN AND ORS. Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision is against the Appellate judgment dated the 16th September, 1966 of the Additional Sessions Judge, Cuttack in Criminal Appeal No. 272 C of 1965, convicting Petitioners Udayanath and Bhimsen under Section 332, Indian Penal Code and Section 26 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and sentencing each of them to pay a fine of Rs. 40/ - on each -count, in default each to undergo R.I. for one month Petitioners Raghunath and Kistan have been convicted only under Section 26 of the Indian Forest Act, and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 40/ - each, in default each to undergo R.I. for two weeks.

(2.) THESE four Petitioners along with 26 others were charged under Section 26 of the Act, and under Sections 147 and 332, Indian Penal Code for removing illicitly felled timbers from the Chandigarh reserved forest by means of buffalo -carts, and for assaulting the forest guards who obstructed them from this aforesaid illegal act.

(3.) AN identical question, as in the present case, came up for consideration in Santana Mahallik v. State : 32 (1966) C.L.T. 299, wherein Hon'ble Mr. Justice G.K. Misra accepted with approval the observations made in Mansid Oraon v. The King : A.I.R. 1951 Pat. 380, that 'for the purpose of proving the guilt of the Petitioners it is necessary to show not only that they did the acts mentioned in Clauses (f) and (h) of Section 26(1) but also that they were not entitled to do those acts because there had been a notification issued under Section 20(1) specifying the limit of the forest, and that the land in question fell within those limits.