KIRAN CHANDRA DAS Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner challenges his conviction under S. 3(a) of the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966. On a report submitted on 13-5-75 by R.P.F. Assistant Inspector, Dibrugarh, alleging that 500 grams of brass bearings belonging to the Railway were recovered from the possession of the petitioner; a case was registered under S. 3(a) of the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966, hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'; and after investigation the petitioner was charged under that Section and was found guilty by the trial Court, which convicted and sentenced him to pay a fine of Rs. 1000/-, in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month and on appeal the conviction was upheld but the sentence was reduced to a fine of Rs. 200/-, in default, to rigorous imprisonment for one month. Hence this revision petition.

(2.) Mr. D. N. Barua, the learned counsel for the petitioner, submits, inter alia, that the impugned judgment of conviction and sentence is bad in law, inasmuch as the prosecution failed to prove that the alleged brass bearings were Railway property or that those were seized from the possession of the petitioner or even that the alleged article seized was brass bearings and nothing else. He further submits that there was no allegation of theft or loss of brass bearings on the part of the Railway and in the absence of such report the question of theft could not arise at all. Mr. Joginder Singh, the learned Public Prosecutor tries to refute the contentions submitting that there was no doubt that the commodity seized was brass bearings which were available only in the Railway workshop at Dibrugarh; that they were recovered from the person of the petitioner and lawfully seized at the R.P.F. Centre; and that the article was duly certified to have been Railway property which left no doubt that the petitioner committed offence under Section 3(a) of the Act.

(3.) The prosecution case is that at about 11 A.M. on 13-5-75 at lunch break the R.P.F. Assistant Sub-Inspector, Shri A. K. Sinha, at the gate of the Dibrugarh Railway Workshop saw that the backside waist of the accused-petitioner, a machinist of the wheel shop of the Railway workshop, who was about to pass through the gate, was unusually inflated and on suspicion Shri Sinha took the petitioner to the nearby R.P.F. post where 500 grams of Railway brass bearings were recovered from his waist and accordingly after investigation he submitted an enquiry report under S. 3(1) of the Act against the petitioner to which the latter pleaded not guilty.