BASANGI KUI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition preferred by eight persons who were convicted under Section 304 read with Section 149, Indian Penal Code, and each sentenced to a term of four years rigorous imprisonment and convicted under Section 147, Indian Penal Code, without any separate sentence.

(2.) These eight petitioners together with another 16 were tried by a learned Magistrate of the first class empowered under Section 30, Criminal P.C., upon a charge of rioting and of killing an Excise Sub-Inspector named Santosh Kumar Sarkar. The trial Magistrate convicted 15 of the accused persons and acquitted the remainder. On appeal to the Court of the Sessions Judge, the learned Judge acquitted seven of the accused persons and affirmed the conviction of the eight petitioners. It has been contended before us that on the materials on the record no conviction can be maintained.

(3.) On 26 April 1941, the deceased Excise Sub-Inspector, Babu Santosh Kumar Sarkar, went accompanied by some Excise peons and oonstables to a village called Kaida and there searched the houses of some of the villagers for illicit liquor. He found four pitchers of illicit liquor lying concealed near a jack-fruit tree and then searched a house close to the tree and recovered another pitcher of liquor. In the meantime it is said that a mob of 75 to 100 villagers collected, and the members of it were in an angry mood. Kuni Kui, the owner of the house, in which a pitcher of liquor was discovered, came on the scene, and the Excise Sub-Inspector asked her for her name. The petitioner Balema Kui urged Kuni Kui not to give her name, and the latter then refused to answer the Sub-Inspector. The Excise Sub-Inspector then asked some of the villagers to carry the illicit liquor to the railway station; but again it is said that the petitioner Balema Kui intervened and pushed the pitchers over with the result that they were broken. The mob began to throw stones and clods of earth and shouts of maro, maro were raised. Eventually the mob got out of control and began to chase the Excise Sub-Inspector who fled towards the jungle. The constables and Excise peons, who had accompanied the officer, appeared to have left him to his fate and fled for their lives. The Excise Sub- Inspector was overtaken and was eventually beaten to death. A constable, Gopinath Gour, succeeded in reaching Posaita Railway Station and caused a message to be sent to the nearest thana. The Sub-Inspector of that thana hurried to that spot and found the corpse of the Excise Sub-Inspector lying near a jack- fruit tree, some 27 paces from the house of the petitioner Kuni Kui. There can be no doubt whatsoever from the medical evidence that this unfortunate officer was battered to death.