AMANULLAH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment and sentence of the learned Sessions Judge of Sylhet who, agreeing with both the assessors as regards the charge under Section 376 against Amanullah and under Section 342 against Amanullah and Sujatullah, and apparently differing from the assessors as regards the charge under Section 379, has convicted, Amanullah and Sujatullah under Section 342, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced them to one year s rigorous imprisonment each, Amanullah under Section 376 and sentenced him to four years rigorous imprisonment and Sujatullah under Section 384, extortion, and sentenced him to one year s rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) Now, the first point which we have to animadvert upon in this conviction, is that there was no charge of extortion under Section 384, and it is wholly illegal to punish a man for a grave offence, involving many totally different ingredients to a charge of theft, on a charge under Section 379. Such a conviction cannot stand for one moment. The conviction under Section 384 must, therefore, go.

(3.) As regards the charge of rape, the evidence is utterly contradictory both as to time, place and whether the woman was heard to make any outcry. The charge was not mentioned in the telegram, which is the earliest reference to the occurrence, which itself was not sent till the Thursday after the occurrence which took place ou Monday, and all the independent witnesses clearly say that they did not hear the cry in the woman s voice. The woman says she was dragged out into the field in one part of her evidence; in another place, she says she was raped under the eaves of the verandah, having been taken out of the room, in which she was alone with Amanullah and where the rape could very well have taken place, apparently for the purpose of creating evidence. There is a cock-and bull story that Amanullah took her two miles on the way to the station at 1 o clock in the morning and left her there in the rain and darkness, yet we find that the other two coolies immediately re-joined her; and how did they get out? They simply broke through the matting of the cook-room in which they were sitting voluntarily waiting to return to the garden. Shankar clearly says that he accompanied the constable to the thana, that the constable said that you would have to be taken back to Kasinagar in the morning and he expressed his perfect willingness to remain and go back to work next day. He, therefore, was sleeping at the thana in the cook-room of his own free will; and it being proved by independent evidence that there was no such cry of the woman as he says induced him to break through the mat wall, it is clear that the three coolies departed together in the middle of the night and probably the chowkidars, who had arrived at the thana at 10 o clock in the evening, departed with them. The chowkidars story is as absurd as that of the coolies. The chowhidars and the three coolies were together from Monday to Thursday and the story which they told the manager, which appears to differ to a great extent from that told in Court, was apparently concocted during that time.