JANAK SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from an order of the Additional Sessions Judge of Patna in a case in which 16 persons were put on their trial before a jury on charges of rioting and of murder committed in the course of a riot. By an unanimous verdict the jury acquitted one of the accused persons and by a majority of 8 to 1 they held the remainder to have committed an offence under Section 326/149, Indian Penal Code. The learned Judge accepted the verdict and sentenced the persons who have been found guilty to five years rigorous imprisonment each under Section 326/149. The jury also found some of the accused guilty under Section 148 and some under Section 147, Indian Penal Code, but no separate sentence has been passed in respect of these offences.

(2.) The rioting which was the subject-matter of the charge arose out of a dispute with respect to plot No. 1666 in village Sahri within a block of land known as Bhangi Bigha.Khandha, On the morning of the occurrence, which was 10th November 1939, Chaman Lal and his party were harvesting the crop on this plot. The accused party, which represents the interest of the landlord, arrived there armed and, according to the evidence, they first sat on the boundary of the field while a constable and a dafadar, who were with them, persuaded the complainant 's party to desist from cutting the crop. The constable's attempt to prevent the crop being harvested was successful to this extent that the men among the harvestors stopped work. The witnesses do not agree as to whether women labourers who were with them went on working or not. However that may be, after the men had stopped, the accused party are said to have assaulted them. These being the material facts, the charge framed against the accused persons was of rioting with the common object of preventing Chaman Lal and his party from harvesting the crop on plot No. 1666 and of assaulting Chaman Lal and his party.

(3.) The first thing to be observed with regard to this charge is that it was an improper charge to frame on the facts alleged by the prosecution. On those facts it is clear that although the party of the accused went to the field armed, they committed no offence at all until the men of the complainant's party having stopped work were attacked by the accused. In these circumstances the proper charge to frame was a charge of rioting with the common object of assaulting the complainant's party. It is not the case of the prosecution that any criminal offence had been committed up to the time when the assault started, and therefore the first branch of the common object mentioned in the charge was unnecessary and likely to cause complications at the trial. Indeed the attacks on the learned Judge's charge to the jury are based largely on the directions which he gave with regard to the two branches of the common object. The learned Judge directed the jury that so far as the second branch of the common object was concerned, it was not necessary for them to decide who was in possession of plot No. 1666 or who had grown the crop. Quite clearly this was a proper direction and there could have been no misunderstanding the law on the subject as laid down by the learned Judge if the first part of the common object had not been introduced into the charge and the learned Judge had not found it necessary to give directions to the jury with regard to this too. In charging the jury with regard to the second branch of the common object the learned Judge in the charge refers to the decision in Ghyasuddin V/s. Emperor ( 32) 19 A.I.R. 1932 Pat. 215. It is not clear whether this reference has been put in the heads of charge merely for the purpose of informing this Court of the decision which the learned Judge had in mind in charging the jury or whether he actually referred the jury to that decision. It has been pointed out more than once that it is undesirable and indeed improper for the Judge who is charging a jury to invite their attention to the decisions of oases respected in law reports, The jury being laymen are unlikely to understand the import of such decisions in the time available to them and it is no part of their business to do so. They have to take the law from the Judge and it is the duty of the Judge to the best of his ability to explain to them what the law in his opinion is. If the Judge considers it necessary in the heads of charge to note any case he had in mind in laying down the law, it is desirable that he should make it clear that the jury was not asked to consider it. That point, however, is hot material for the matter which we have now to consider.