IQBAL AHMAD Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by Iqbal Ahmad, Afzal Ahmad, Laiq Ahmad and 13 others who have been convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge of Allahabad, of offences under Secs.324, 325, 452 and 426, Indian Penal Code (all these sections are to be read with Section 149, Indian Penal Code) and sentenced all of them under Section 452, Indian Penal Code to undergo three years rigorous imprisonment and also to pay a fine of Rs. 100 each with two months further rigorous imprisonment in default and under Section 426, Indian Penal Code, to undergo each of them to one month's rigorous imprisonment. Under Section 324, Indian Penal Code, the first three appellants have been sentenced each to undergo 21/2 years rigorous imprisonment while the remaining appellants are sentenced to 11/2 years rigorous imprisonment. Under Section 325 the first three appellants are sentenced to 41/2 years rigorous imprisonment each with a fine of Rs. 150 or in default three months rigorous imprisonment. The remaining appellants are sentenced each under this section to undergo 4 years rigorous imprisonment and to pay each of them a fine of Rs. 50 with one month's rigorous imprisonment in default. The total amount of fines inflicted is said to be something over Rs. 3000. The appellants were committed for trial along with 13 others on two charges, the first under Secs.307 and 325 read with Section 149, Indian Penal Code, being that they on 20 July 1939 at about 1-30 p. m. in village Syed Sara wan formed an unlawful assembly with the common object of beating the men of one Qabul Ahmad of Syed Sarawan and causing damage to his property and in pursuance of their common object Iqbal Ahmad fired a gun causing injuries to Ishwar Din (alias Barku), a servant of Qabul Ahmad and grievous hurt with lathis to Syed Uddin. The second charge under Secs.426 and 452 is that on the same day at about the same time in pursuance of the same common object they trespassed into Qabul Ahmad's house having made preparations to cause hurt to Qabul Ahmad and damaged his property.

(2.) It is not in dispute that on 20 July 1939 an occurrence in the nature of a riot took place between the parties of Iqbal Ahmad appellant, on the one hand, and Qabul Ahmad, the original complainant, on the other. It appears that in village Karaul, a hamlet of Junaidpur, there is a plot in which there are three cosharers, Aulad Ahmad, Mohammad Azim and one Moor Ahmad, a minor. This plot had been sublet to one Jagannath Murai and it was in connexion with this plot and the collection of its rent that a dispute arose between Qabul Ahmad, who claims to have been in charge of this and other cultivation in village Syed Sarawan on behalf of Aulad Ahmad and Mohammad Azim, and Iqbal Ahmad who in the year preceding this occurrence had made collections on behalf of the minor, Noor Ahmad. It is said and is scarcely free from dispute that only about a fortnight before this occurrence Qabul Ahmad entertained a number of servants who are the persons who for the most part sustained injuries in the occurrence of 20 July. For the defence it is said that these men were taken on to enable Qabul Ahmad to assert possession of the whole of the plots and make collections by force. For the prosecution, it is said that they were taken on for the protection of Qabul Ahmad against Iqbal Ahmad and it is not in doubt that previous disputes between these parties had led to serious outbreaks of violence which might suggest the necessity of taking on some sort of bodyguard.

(3.) These were the circumstances preceding the occurrence of 20 July. It is said that Iqbal Ahmad had approached his maternal uncle Ali Jawwad of village Mehgaon some two miles away from Syed Sarawan to arbitrate in this dispute. Mohammad Azim, one of the cosharers on whose behalf Qabul Ahmad was managing also lives in Mehgaon and on 20 July he sent for Qabul Ahmad and mentioned this intervention and the necessity of holding a panchayat. A panchayat was accordingly held and it was decided therein that Iqbal Ahmad and Mohammad Azim should approach a pleader to act as an arbitrator and that in the meantime neither party should interfere with the possession of the other. There is a dispute as to the time at which this panchayat took place. According to the prosecution it dispersed by midday, while according to the defence it finished an hour or two later. It is the prosecution case that Qabul Ahmad did not at once return to Syed Sarawan but remained at Mehgaon at the house of Mohammad Azim where late in the afternoon he received through Mt. Nasiban, a barber woman, information that in his absence a serious clash had taken place in Syed Sarawan.