SATINDRA NATH SEN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants have been ordered to give security for good behaviour on the ground that they habitually commit or abet the commission of offences involving a breach of the peace and are of so desperate and dangerous a character as to render their being at large without security hazardous to the community.

(2.) The appellants are said to have associated together in what is known as the Satyagraha movement which started at Patuakhali in the Backergunje District in 1926 in connexion with a dispute between the Hindus and Mahomedans because the latter objected to Hindu processions with music passing a certain mosque. The authorities intervened and, in order to prevent breaches of the peace, such processions were prohibited. The members of this movement defied the law and a number of them were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Some of the younger and more active members came to be known as Satin Sen's volunteers as they were enthusiastic followers of Satin Sen. They were by common repute responsible for a number of cases in which Mahomedans were assaulted and also those who were opposed to the Satyagraha movement including Government officers some of whom had to have special police protection owing to fear of assault by the volunteers. On 20 March 1928, proceedings under Section 110, Criminal P.C., were drawn up against Satin Sen and a number of these voluteers.

(3.) On 7 July 1928, a compromise of the dispute about processions passing mosques with music was arranged between the Satyagrahis and Mahomedan leaders whereupon the proceedings under Section 110, Criminal P. C, and certain other cases were withdrawn, and it was hoped that there would henceforth be peace in the District. Against Satin Sen himself the proceedings had been cancelled on the technical ground that he was outside the jurisdiction of the Court on the date the proceedings were drawn up. It is urged with some force that conduct prior to the compromise should not be taken into account unless there is evidence that subsequently the appellants were guilty of abetting the commission of offences involving a breach of the peace, and certainly it would not be right to base an order under Section 110, Criminal P.C., only on events which took place before July 1928. And unfortunately by their success in connexion with the mosque dispute (the terms of the compromise were that processions with music should be allowed to pass the mosques, subject to executive orders), the volunteer element seems to have become imbued with a sense of their power of remedying what they considered to be wrongs of the people by a defiance of law. No sooner had the mosque dispute been settled than Satin Sen's volunteers became involved in a renewal of his previous activities in opposition to Union Boards. These Union Boards were unpopular parties because, in order to carry out sanitary work etc., in the villages, a small addition to the chaukidari. tax was required. Satin Sen's volunteers were called in to help in opposing the realization of the tax in the case of Deoli Village Union; when property was attached people were deterred by threats from purchasing it; and finally the houses of the president and tax collectors were burnt down when they persisted in trying to realize taxes, and they were forced to resign. This was in the latter part of 1928. This attack on the Deoli Union Board organization was a recrudescence of earlier attacks some years previously on other Union Boards in the District led by Satin Sen of which we have evidence in the case of the Union Boards of Surajamani, Laukhati, Srirampur and Moradia. In the case of Surjamani we have evidence that Satin Sen demanded that the tax collector should, resign, otherwise he might be insulted and even lose his life. At Laukhati when the S.D.O. with an Inspector and armed police went down to assist in collecting" the tax, he had an encounter with Satin Sen and his volunteers. The Inspector says that Sen pushed him down. The version of the defence is that Satin was first attacked. In any case the volunteers made it impossible to realize the rates by sale of property attached as people were too terrified to buy. There is evidence that at Srirampur the houses of the president and a member of the Union Board were burnt down shortly after. Satin Sen visited the village and spoke against the Union Board.