JHUMAK RAI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision challenging the propriety of the conviction of the petitioners, who are seven in number, under Section 379, Indian Penal Code. They have been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 15 days each.

(2.) The case for the prosecution was that one Eamdeo Singh had obtained delivery of possession over plot No. 404 and when his servant Lalji Eai, the complainant in this case, went on Thursday, 7 March 1940, he found the petitioners, some of whom were ousted tenants, digging up potatoes from the field, and in spite of his remonstrance, they carried away the potato crop. The Courts below have concurrently found" that Eamdeo was in possession on the date of the occurrence by obtaining delivery of possession through Court on 30th December 1989. Learned Counsel for the petitioners argues that, if the Courts below had only perused the copies of the judgment and decree which were filed in the case on behalf of the defence (Ex. B), they would not have come to this conclusion and would have been satisfied that the petitioners had a bona fide belief that the crops found to have heen taken away by them were not the crops of Ramdeo Singh but belonged to Rampalak (petitioner 2) at the very least.

(3.) Now it appears that Eamdeo Singh instituted rent suits against a number of tenants, including Eampalak, in 1938 and obtained rent decrees on 17th November 1938. He put the holdings of the tenants to sale and purchased them himself on 26 September 1939, and obtained delivery of possession on 30th December 1939, as already stated. But, in the meantime, on 9 Septem-ber 1939, Rampalak Mahton and some of the other petitioners (who are not connected with plot No. 404) instituted a number of civil suits to have the rent decree obtained by Ramdeo Singh set aside. While the civil suits were pending, the occurrence took place on 7 March 1940. The civil suits, however, were disposed of by a judgment on 31 July 1940, which was embodied in the decree on 7th August 1940, by which the rent decrees have been set aside, with the result that the sales held thereunder were no longer valid. It seems to me, that in these circumstances the petitioner Rampalak cannot be held to have any dishonest intention when he removed the crops while he was contending that the rent decree and the sale under which his holding was supposed to have passed on to Ramdeo Singh was not binding on him as having been obtained by fraudulent suppression of summons.