JAY MAHTO Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, father and son, have been convicted tinder Secs.411 and 379, I.P.C., respectively, and sentenced to a fine of Rs. 5, each with one week's rigorous imprisonment in default. Haripada Sen, on whose information the case was started, had a buffalo which injured a buffalo of the petitioners.

(2.) The prosecution case was that thereupon the petitioner Kalipada Mahto seized Haripada's buffalo and would not return it. That Haripada's buffalo was in the house of the petitioners for several days was admitted, but the defence was that it had been made over to them by complain, ant's brother on account of the injury caused and that when Haripada Sen, who was away at the timo, returned home, he offered the accused Rs. 10 more as further compensation while the latter demanded a larger sum. The trying Magistrate refused to believe that the buffalo had been made over to the petitioner Kalipada Mahto because Abhimanyu Sen, a brother of Haripada s, went to the thana that evening and made a statement to the constable who was present there at the time, which the latter passed on to the officer in charge, on the following day.

(3.) But the record made by the officer in charge says nothing about the snatching away of the buffalo by the accused, and only speaks of their buffalo having been injured and their claiming compensation and the complainant's party being unwilling to pay any compensation because nobody knew whose buffalo had caused the injury and that they were being threatened to be assaulted by the accused persons.