LAKHMAN KURMI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision on behalf of Lakhman Kurmi who has been ordered under Section 109 read with Section 118, Criminal P.C., to execute a bond of Rs. 100 with two sureties of the like amount to be of good behaviour for a period of one year or in default to undergo rigorous imprisonment for one year by an order passed by the first class Deputy Magistrate of Gopalgunj dated 29 June 1940, an appeal against which order was dismissed by the learned Sessions Judge of Saran on 20 January 1941.

(2.) The facts found are these. On the night of 9 March 1940, at about 2 A. M. the petitioner along with two others, untraced, were seen standing on the District Board road about 10 bighas east of village Isuapur by three chaukidars who were on their rounds. On being challenged they all ran away. The petitioner hid himself in a big sugarcane field immediately to the east of that road. The chaukidars surrounded the field and at dawn they took the help of one Feku Missir who was seen approaching with some labourers to cut sugar-cane crops from the neighbouring field. The party then entered the sugar-cane field where they found the petitioner sitting almost in the middle of the sugar-cane field under a bar tree with his face covered; a bundle of sarso, about four seers in weight, was kept by his side. The petitioner was questioned and gave his name as Sobran Kanu and resident of village Daibhata. But one of the chaukidars was able to identify him to be Lakhman Kurmi. This roused the suspicion of the party who searched the person of the petitioner and they found a big knife, a torch in working order and a bunch of keys. The petitioner was then taken to the thana and a station diary entry was lodged. Upon these facts the petitioner has been ordered to execute a bond in the terms already stated.

(3.) The petitioner's defence was that he was in ill health, was suffering from enlarged spleen, and on that date started from his house at village Ekdarwa at about 7 or 8 A.M. in order to go to another village for treatment and that he took a bundle of sarso so that he may sell it and meet the costs of treatment. But on the way, he says, he got an attack of fever and lay down on a culvert on the District Board road where he was arrested owing to enmity. He denied that be was arrested inside the sugar-cane field.