SATGUR DAYAL Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant, Satgur Dayal Avasthi, has been ordered by a First Class Magistrate to execute a personal bond for Rs. 10,000 with two sureties each in the same amount to be of good behaviour for three years. As he did not give the security ordered the proceedings were laid before the Sessions Judge who affirmed the order of the Magistrate. Satgur Dayal has come up to this Court in revision. He challenges the validity of the order requiring him to give security for his good behaviour. He also contends that the amount of the bond demanded from him is excessive.

(2.) The case against the applicant stationary party and is so desperate and dangerous as to render his being at large without security hazardous to the community. The validity of the order requiring the applicant to give security is contested on the ground that the evidence of police officers, on which the Courts below have mainly relied, is inadmissible, and that, even if admissible, it is insufficient in law to justify the order made in the case.

(3.) In proceedings under Sub-section (f), Section 110, Criminal P.C., evidence of general repute may be tendered by the Crown to prove that a person is sodesperate and dangerous as to render his being at large without security hazardous to the community. Evidence of association with proved revolutionaries is also evidence of reputation. A police officer is certainly a competent witness to speak to the reputation of a person who resides within his circle or to the reputation of a person with regard to whom he has had special occasions to make observations and enquiries in the course of his official duties. The police witnesses in this case are not only the local police officers but C.I.D., officers of the U.P., and of other Provinces. If the evidence given by such officers is evidence of general repute and of association with proved revolutionaries, and not merely rumour or suspicion, it is undoubtedly admissible.