GOPAL MAHTON Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicants have been convicted under Section 186, I.P.C. Gopal Mahton, an old man aged about 80, has been sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 50, or in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one fortnight.

(2.) The other applicant, Mouji Mahton, has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six weeks and to pay a fine of Rs. 50, or in default to suffer a further one month's rigorous imprisonment. The concurrent findings of the Courts below are that the local collecting member of the chaukidari panchayat known as the assessor panch went armed with a warrant to realise arrears of chaukidari tax by attachment of the cattle of the petitioner, Gopal Mahton. The assessor panch attached two heads of cattle, but when he had gone a short distance, the petitioners and others came up and rescued them, Mouji, who was armed with a pharsa, threatening to assault the assessor panch and his man. Two points of law have been taken in this application in revision, first, that the assessor panch was not a public servant acting in the discharge of his public functions and, secondly, that the warrant was bad, and the petitioners accordingly could have committed no offence in resisting its execution.

(3.) I consider there is no substance in the first contention. Section 21, I.P.C., provides that the words "public servant" denota inter alia: Every officer whose duty it is, as such officer, to take, receive, keep or expend any property, to make any survey or assessment or to levy any rate or tax for any secular common purpose of any village, town or district.