RAJANI KANTA MANDAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The learned Assistant Sessions Judge for Jamshedpur has convicted the appellant under Section 5 of the Explosive Substances Act and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of five years.

(2.) The prosecution case was that at about 10-30 p.m. while Ramkrit Singh (P.W. 9), a constable attached to Golmuri police station an the town of Jamshedpur, was proceeding to his standpost duty he found the appellant lying on a pucca platform known as Golchakkar near the railway bridge. On being questioned as to why he was there at such a late hour the appellant said that he was waiting there to meet a person from the factory. The constable told him that all the factory people had gone away & the appellant should go and stay at the railway platform. As the appellant rose to go with his jhola the constable enquired what the Jhola contained. The appellant replied that it contained clothes and a bomb. On being asked to show the contents of the jhola the appellant showed the constable "two wires and two pieces of masala". He added that the articles could be used to blow up a building in a moment. The constable thereupon took the appellant to Jug-salai thana and handed him over to Sub-Inspector Nazir Pandey, the officer-in-charge. The Sub-Inspector found two jholas one, a small one, inside a bigger jhola. The explosive materials found in the jhola consisting of (1) one full cartridge of Special Gelatine of 75 per cent strength, (2) one 1/8th cartridge of Special Gelatine of 75 per cent strength, and (3) two ordinary detonators attached with safety fuse, one measuring 51" and the other measuring 52". The sub-Inspecter recorded a station diary and seized the articles. On 'the next day he got the articles examined by the Superintendent, Scrap and Salvage of the Tata Indian and Iron Steel Company. That officer reported that the materials were high explosives and were the products of Messrs. Imperial Chemical Industries Limited. Another station diary entry was made by the Sub-Inspector after this report was received. It was on the basis of these two station diaries that the first information report of this case was drawn up on 15-10-55. After completing investigation the police submitted charge-sheet against the appellant under Section 5 of the Explosive Substances Act.

(3.) The appellant admitted his arrest by the constable. He, however, denied that the jhola containing the explosive materials belonged to him. His defence was that while he was moving about near the Golchakkar the constable came to the scene and drove away the people who were then sleeping there. It was suggested that one of those persons had very probably left his jhola there. The allegation was that the constable meeting the appellant asked his name and address and finding that he was an outsider took him to the thana. He finally stated that the Sub-Inspector had implicated him falsely in this case because he had enmity with his uncle Joti Mandal, who was a pleader's clerk at Jamshedpur.