DHIRENDRA CHANDRA SAHA AND ORS. Vs. TRIPURA ADMINISTRATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners were convicted by the first class magistrate, Sadar under Section 353, I.P.C. and each of them sentenced to undergo R.I. for 6 months. In the appeal to the Sessions Judge, their conviction was confirmed but their sentence was reduced to 2 months' R.I. each. Now they have come up in revision.

(2.) ON 16 -7 -59 at about 8 P.M., P.W. 1 N.R. Datta, an Inspector of Land Customs, Preventive; Unit along with P.W. 2, a Sub -Inspector of Land Customs and a Peon, Ajit Das were patrolling in the Arundhutinagar area in the course of their preventive work. On seeing a rickshaw drawn by rickshaw puller, P.W. 3 with the petitioners 1 and 2 inside it along with a gunny bag put under a bundle of fuel and another basket on top of the fuel coming from the direction of the Pakistan, border, they stopped the said rickshaw and searched it and found the gunny bag and the basket to contain betelnuts. P.W. 1 thereupon asked the rickshaw puller to proceed to the Customs Office in Mantribari road with P.W. 1 and P.W. 2 and the articles inside as he wanted to make a further check. P. Ws. 1 -3 followed the rickshaw. When the rickshaw had travelled for about 2 miles and passed a furlong beyond the Kotwali police station and reached near the house of petitioner No. 1, he asked the rickshaw puller to stop and on it being stopped, he got down and unloaded the basket of betelnuts from the rickshaw and was unloading the bundle of fire wood. Thereupon P. Ws. 1 and 2 protested and a hot altercation ensued between the petitioners 1 and 2 and P. Ws. 1 and 2. I have here taken the version given by P.W. 3, the rickshaw puller and not the version given by P. Ws. 1 and, 2, according to whom there was no such altercation. But their version is certainly likely to be somewhat coloured on this point and the rickshaw puller's version is more likely to be correct and disinterested.

(3.) THE Peon, Ajit Das rushed to the police station when the trouble was going on and P.W. 4 the A.S.I. arrived on the scene and he was told by P.W. 1 that he was being obstructed by the surrounding crowd to take the rickshaw to the Customs office. No report of any manhandling by anybody in the crowd was made to the A.S.I. Anyway, the trouble ceased on the arrival of the A.S.I, and P.W. 1 and his party took the gunny bag of betelnuts and the remaining fire wood in the same rickshaw to the Customs office. The 'next day, after obtaining the necessary permission from his superior officer, P.W. 1 lodged the F.I.R. in the kotwali police station. Then the petitioners were prosecuted under Section 353, I.P.C.