BUGGA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave from a judgment dated the 2nd June, 1919 of a Commission appointed under the Martial Law Ordinances of 1919 and sitting at Lahore. By that judgment twenty of the twenty-one appellants were convicted of offences under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code, that is to say, of waging or attempting to wage war against the King or abetting the waging of such war and were sentenced to death and forfeiture of property; but it is understood that as to some of them the death sentence has since been commuted. The remaining appellant, Ghulam Hassan, son of Makham, was convicted of an offence under Section 412 of the same Code, that is to say, of receiving stolen property from dacoits, and was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for seven years. The question raised on the appeal is as to the competency of the Commission to try the appellants for those offences.

(2.) The facts may be stated as follows: At the end of March and during the first days of April, 1919, there was serious unrest in certain parts of the province of the Punjab, and this unrest culminated on the 10th April in the outbreak of open rebellion at Amritsar in that province and elsewhere, and the offences of which the appellants have been found guilty were committed at Amritsar on that date. The occurrences of the 10th April are stated in the judgment of the Commissioners as follows:- On April 10th, 1919, about noon, after the arrest of Kitchlew and Satyapal, disorder broke out in Amritsar, in the course of which an attempt was made to invade the Civil Station by a mob which had to be turned back by fire from troops and police. Shortly after this mob attacked the National Bank situated in the City, brutally murdered Mr. Stewart, manager, and Mr. Scott, assistant manager, sacked and burnt the bank, and looted the godown, which contained cloth and other goods to the value of several lakhs of rupees. The Chartered and Alliance Banks were subsequently sacked. A Mission Hall, Church and the Religious Book Society s Depot were also attacked and burnt by the mob. There was no reason why those institutions should have been singled out by the mob or their leaders except that, us the evidence shows, they were out to destroy the visible manifestations of British connection with the country.

(3.) It was proved that the appellants, with the possible exception of Ghulam Hassan, wove members of the mob and took an active part in the attack on the National Bank, and there was evidence that some of them took part in the actual murder of the manager and assistant manager. Bugga and Ratan Chand appear to have been the ringleaders. Ghulam Hassan was found in possession of property looted from the Bank. Bugga was arrested on the 12th April and the other appellants on subsequent dates. None of them were taken in arms or in the act of committing the offences with which they were charged.