EMPEROR Vs. NAUSHE ALI KHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for revision of an order of the Additional Sessions Judge of Moradabad, confirming an order of a Magistrate of the first class whereby the applicant was convicted of an offence under Section 379, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to pay a fine.

(2.) The facts found are that the applicant snatched some books from a boy as he was coming out of school and told the boy that he would return the books if he came to his house. Both the Judge and the Magistrate have found that the object of the applicant was to get the boy into his house and commit an unnatural offence upon him.

(3.) The question for decision is whether the applicant committed theft. There seems no doubt that on the facts stated the applicant could not be convicted of larceny under the common law. I mention this because my attention has been called to an old English case, in which, on facts not unlike those of the present case, the accused was acquitted. In that case the prisoner took from a house in the night a young girl s bonnet and some other articles of her dress and carried them to a hay-mow where he had twice had connection with her. The jury thought that he took them in order that the girl might again go to the mow, and he might have another opportunity of soliciting her to repeat the connection. It was held that the prisoner had not committed larceny. R. v. Dickinson (1820) R. and R. In order to constitute larceny there must be an intention to take entire dominion over the property. i.e., the taker must intend to appropriate the property to his own use.