BIDESHI MIAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts of the case out of which this application arises are these: By Notification 1014, dated 12 June 1931, issued under Section 3, Criminal Tribes Act (6 of 1924), the Governor-in-Council declared that a gang of forty persons, whose names were given in the notification, were a criminal tribe for the purposes of the said Act. The notification runs as follows: Whereas the Governor-in-Council has reason to believe that the persons named in the list hereto appended are members of a gang commonly known as Hari Singh's gang, and that the said gang is addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offences therefore the Governor- in-Council, in exercise of the powers conferred on him by Section 3, Criminal Tribes Act (6 of 1924), hereby declares the said gang to be a criminal tribe for the purposes of the said Act.

(2.) Then follows a list of forty persons and the names of these five petitioners appear in the list. On 17 July last they were called on by the Superintendent of Police at Dhanbad to present themselves at Gobindpur thana to have their thumb- impressions taken. This was done, and their names were entered in the register which is maintained under Section 4 of the Act. They then applied to the Deputy Commissioner of Dhanbad under Section 8 of the Act, asking to have their names removed from the register, on the ground that they have been registered without any justification; but the Deputy Commissioner, after calling for a police report, declined to accede to their prayer. They have now come to this Court in its revisional jurisdiction, and it is contended for them that their names were wrongly entered as members of a criminal tribe, that they have never committed any non- bailable offence and that they are all men with cultivation and other honest means of subsistence and in fact not the kind of persons to whom the Criminal Tribes Act applies at all.

(3.) It is contended on the other hand by the learned Government Advocate that this Court has no jurisdiction to investigate whether the order directing their registration under this Act was justifiable, and in my opinion Sir Sultan Ahmad's contention is well-founded. The question is concluded by a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Hasan Ali Bepari V/s. Emperor [1920] 47 Cal. 843. There it was held that a District Magistrate in refusing to direct removal of the names of certain persons from a register maintained under the Criminal Tribes Act was acting as an executive officer, and did not perform a judicial function and that the High Court had no authority to interfere.