DHANRAJ Vs. HIRACHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is yet another case of the type with which I have had to deal recently wherein the appeal must be allowed on the short ground that the judgment produced by the learned Judge of the first appellate court is not at all a judgment in accordance with law.

(2.) THE appeal arises out of a suit for malicious prosecution. It appears that there was some election in village Dalai, and that was the cause of bad blood between the plaintiff Dhanraj and his associates on the one hand and Hirachand defendant on the other. On the 14th June, 1956, the defendant lodged a complaint against the plaintiff and thirteen other persons in the court of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Jalore, for offences under sec. 452, 323 and 147 of the Indian Penal Code on the allegations that there was considerable bad blood between the parties, and that on the 12th June, 1956, at about 8 or 9 P. M. when the defendant was sleeping in his Pol, all the accused including the plaintiff came in a body and entered into the Pol, that they were all armed with lathis and were actuated by a common intention to beat him, that out of the plaintiff's party, two persons, namely, the plaintiff and one other person Bhagwana beat him with lathis as a result of which he fell down and that thereafter all the accused further beat him with slaps and kicks at which on an outcry having been raised some neighbours came on the scene and saved the defendant. THE plaintiff's case further was that after seeking several adjournments in the court of the Magistrate,the defendant made an application on the 15th April, 1957, for withdrawing the complaint. In this application it was mentioned that his witnesses had become hostile and that he had no hope of their deposing the true facts of the case, and, therefore, he was compelled to give them up and there was no other evidence, and so the complaint be dismissed and the accused discharged. THE Magistrate discharged the plaintiff and the other accused on the same date accordingly. THEreafter the plaintiff filed the present suit in court of the Munsiff Jalore on the 9th April, 1958, for damages for malicious prosecution. His case was that the defendant had filed the complaint against him falsely and maliciously and without any reasonable and probable cause, and he prayed for an award of damages amounting to Rs. 1100/- to him out of which Rs. 168/4/- were claimed as special damages and the balance of Rs. 933/12/- (the actual amount comes to Rs. 931/12/- only) as general damages.

(3.) FOR the reasons mentioned above, I accept this appeal, set aside the judgment and decree of the learned Senior Civil Judge, Jalore, and send the case back to him with a direction that, after allowing the parties a fresh opportunity to address arguments in the case, he will decide the case afresh by producing a proper judgment in accordance with law. Under the circumstances, I would make no order as to costs. .