VEERANA NADAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants have been convicted of rioting by the Sessions Judge concurring generally with the assessors.

(2.) The case is a difficult one in some respects. There is no doubt that there was an affray between the Nadars and Thevars and that all the appellants were members of the assembly of Nadars, which formed one party to the affray, and there is no reason to doubt that the affray arose out of the interference by the Thevars with a number of Nadars engaged in demolishing a house, the title to which was in dispute between the two castes.

(3.) The Sessions Judge finds it impossible to accept as true either the account put before him of the occurrence, and it is clear that the prosecution witnesses cannot be telling the whole truth when they deny that their party inflicted injuries on the Nadars. If what appears to be the case for the Crown is the true case, that is to say, that the Police officers were not present when the affray commenced, then, the prosecution evidence is untrue also on the important questions of the origin of the riot. On this point, the observations of the Sessions Judge, in paragraph 13 of his judgment, seem to me to be entirely justified.