CHOTU HAJJAM Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners have been convicted under Secs.147 and 225, I. P.C., the occurrence being the rescue from the custody of a chaukidar of a man who was being escorted to the police station on a charge of theft. A Rule was issued on the ground that the rescue from the custody of the chaukidar was not illegal within the meaning of Section 225, I. P. C, the point, that is to say, is whether the chaukidar's custody was lawful custody. Section 59, Criminal P.C., authorizes any private person to arrest any person who in his view commits a non-bailable and cognizable offence and to take such person or cause him to be taken in custody to the nearest police station.

(2.) It is to be seen whether the offence of theft was committed in the view of the person who arrested the alleged thief and whether such person after arresting the thief made him over to the chaukidar. Before the amendment of the Code in 1923 it had been held in some cases that a chaukidar not being a police officer had no power to receive the custody of a person arrested under Section 59 by a private individual and to take such person to the police station.

(3.) But the amendment in 1923 by inserting the words "or cause him to be taken in custody" has made it impossible to raise this somewhat technical argument now. Moreover the district in which the alleged occurrence took place is Chota Nagpur where special powers are given and duties imposed on chaukidars by the Chota Nagpur Rural Police Act, 1914 (Bihar and Orissa Act 1 of 1914), Secs.21 (1)(6) and 22.