EAST PUNJAB UNIVERSITY SOLAN Vs. TARLOK NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a reference made by me to a Division Bench on the 16th June 1952.

(2.) THE facts of the case may be stated as follows. The plaintiff Trilok Nath aged about 15 or 16 was appearing for the Matriculation Examination of the East Punjab University at Pathankot centre in 1949, His father Farina Nand was at the time the Headmaster of the District Board middle School at Sujanpore near Pathankot. There was a centre for examination at Sujanpore also, and Shannu Mal, a Headmaster of another school, was the Supervisor of this examination centre. He was at the time residing in the office of the Middle School and Parma Nand was residing in another portion of the school building. On the 28th May 1949 Shannu Mal left sujanpore to go to Batala as there were one or two holidays. Trilok Nath, who had appeared in four papers in two subjects of the University Examination, came home for the days when he was free from his examination and was residing with bis father Parma Nand. On the night between the 28th and 29th there was a theft in the office where Shannu Mal had been residing and had left the question-papers. The shelf of the almirah in which the papers were lying was broken open and covers containing the question-papers were cut by something like a ra2or blade and one or two papers were extracted from each one of the envelopes. The papers which were extracted were of the following subjects: Mathematics 'a' and 'b', Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi and persian. The plaintiff was only interested in Mathematics papers, as he had not offered other subjects for his examination. After the papers were extracted the envelopes were gummed up and a gum-pot belonging to the school library was found quite close to the envelopes. The theft was discovered next morning, i. e. , the 29th and the chaukidar made a report to Parma nand who rightly advised him to make a report to the police and accompanied Prem Singh chaukidar to the police post for the purpose of making the report. The police from Pathankot police Station also arrived as they have jurisdiction over this police post and Investigation started. Seven boys, who were all candidates for the examination besides the plaintiff Trilok nath, were interrogated by the Police. No clue was found, and on the 31st of May in the evening kesar Mal who is an Office Superintendent (Conduct) of the University arrived at Sujanpore and it is stated that he took charge of these boys and he first interrogated Trilok Nath, and it is in evidence that Trilok Nath made a confession to him in writing which is Exhibit D. 1 on the record. Kesar Mal after making some enquiries made a report to the University that there was no leakage of the papers. Before Kesar Mal arrived, an Inspector of Police also had arrived at the scene and one Mr. S. N. Sehgal who was an Inspector of the Examination Centre of Jullundur circle also came.

(3.) TRILOK Nath was then arrested and was placed for trial before a Magistrate who held that the confession was made when Trilok Nath was in police custody and therefore the confession, now exhibit D. 1, was inadmissible in evidence and he also held that there was no other evidence to connect Trilok Nath with the offence, and, therefore, discharged Trilok Nath under Section 253 of the Criminal Procedure Code on the 11th July, 1949.