MOHAMAD ARIF Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant Mohammad Arif alias Supan Mian, aged about 20 years, has been convicted by the Sessions Judge of Gaya on a charge of murder of Sheonandan Singh and sentenced under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, to transportation for life. The crime is said to have been committed on Monday 10th July 1939 at about 5 P.M. by stabbing Sheonandan in the abdomen with a broad bladed knife at Nawada on the bridge which crosses the river. Sheonandan pressing his hands to the wound walked without assistance to the end of the bridge where he was picked up by a rickshawwala Shital Lal and taken to the hospital. There he made a statement charging Supan, the son of Hafiz Abdul Qadir, with the crime. He received surgical treatment but died the same night.

(2.) The trial was held with the aid of four assessors of whom two who were Mahomedans thought the accused was not guilty and the other two who were Hindus thought that he was guilty. The Sessions Judge in a careful and considered judgment has examined the evidence of the prosecution witnesses who have deposed as to the events of that day and has found that most of them are unreliable and expresses doubt whether the alleged eye-witnesses were present at all.

(3.) He however has based the conviction of the accused in the main on the identification of Sheonandan himself along with the fact that on search of the house of the father of accused that night a knife was recovered which was on chemical examination found to be stained with blood, and partly also on the fact that whereas the accused had pleaded alibi saying that he was in Calcutta there is evidence which the Sessions Judge accepts to prove his presence in Nawada on the day in question. As to the dying declaration the Sessions Judge has observed that he would not wish to attach any exaggerated or sentimental value to it though he finds it difficult to envisage circumstance or motive so cogent as would induce a man mortally wounded to accuse a person other than his actual assailant.