RAMJI DAS Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a revision petition by one Ramji Das who was ordered by a first class Magistrate of Mandi to execute a bond in Rs. 1000. 00 and furnish one surety in like amount to be of good behaviour for a period of one year under Section 109 (b), Cr. P. C. The petitioner failed to furnish the security and has been undergoing rigorous imprisonment for one year since the passing of the order by the Magistrate on 9-31953. His appeal from jail was dismissed by the learned Sessions Judge, and now he has filed the present revision.

(2.) IT has been found against him both that he had no ostensible means of subsistence and that he could not give a satisfactory account of himself. Neither of these findings appears, however, to be well founded. So far as the first finding is concerned the record shows that the police as well as the Magistrate confined attention merely to the fact that the petitioner had no ostensible means of subsistence in Mandi where he was arrested on 16-10-1952, and to which place he does not belong. The words used in Section 109 (b) of the Code are :

(3.) COMING to the other ground of whether the petitioner could not give a satisfactory account of himself, it has been stated by the Sub Inspector Nand Lal and H. C. Makund Ram that the petitioner gave different names and addresses. From that alone, however, it cannot be held that he failed to give a satisfactory account of himself. It may be that he wanted to remain Incognito. There is no suggestion, much less proof, that the purpose of the petitioner concealing his identity was something which might lead to the inference that he was a vagrant or a suspected person. The aforesaid prosecution witness Joban Singh, who is an employee in the local Employment Exchange, has stated that for 20 days the petitioner continued to come to his office with the object of getting his name registered there, True, the witness says that eventually the petitioner made no written application for registration, but the fact remains that the petitioner was trying to get his name registered, and that for this purpose he frequented the office of the Employment Exchange for as many as 20 days. This by itself would be a satisfactory account of the petitioner's presence in Mandi.