NARENDRA MOHAN GHOSE CHOWDHURY Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This was a Rule calling upon the District Magistrate of Backergunge to show cause why the order under Section 109 (b), Criminal Procedure Code, should not be set aside on the ground that that clause has no application to this case and that other matters, irrelevant to such a charge, have been introduced. We had occasion to set out at some length our views on the law under Section 109, Criminal Procedure Code, only the other day in the case of Emperor T. Satish Chandra Sarkar 13 Ind. Cas. 913 : 16 C.W.N. 499 : 15 C.L.J. 396 : 13 Cr. L.J. 161, and we do not propose to go over the same ground again. It i3 sufficient to say that this case is clearly distinguishable from that, inasmuch as in this case the accused was found not in his own father s house as in that case but in an-1 other district in the house of a man who was suspected, on grounds which appear in evidence, of being a dangerous political conspirator, and to have collected a large amount of seditious literature which was the mental pabulum of his young daughters.

(2.) On the facts, the Magistrate of Backergunge was justified in demanding an account of himself from this young man, and the account he gave was in the main false and not satisfactory.

(3.) The principal argument for the defence is that the acts he was suspected of are acts which prove him to be a dangerous character and that he should have been indicted under Section 110, but we do not find anything which would have enabled the Magistrate to take action under that section. He could not give a satisfactory account of his association with persons who may have been dangerous in a district where he was a stranger but that does not show that he is himself so desperate and dangerous as to render his being at large hazardous to the community. It was also argued that Clause (b), Section 109, only applies to vagrants or vagabonds, but we find, it certainly covers suspected persons who are classed in Europe rogues and persons of any class who cannot give a satisfactory account of themselves. Having given the case our best consideration, we do not think we should be justified in setting aside the order to furnish security in revision, as it appears to us to be a lawful order and made with jurisdiction. But we think that the security demanded is excessive and that the object being to keep this young man from wandering about with suspicious characters, his father, who says he is able to exercise control over him, should be one of the securities and a respectable gentleman of the locality in Backergunj where he was found should be the other. There appear on the record to be two such gentlemen available, but we think one will be sufficient. We reduce the security to a bond of Rs. 500 from the petitioner himself together with two securities in Rs. 500 each in addition, one of whom should be his father and the other a respectable gentleman of the locality where he was found. With this modification the Rule is discharged.