PUBLIC PROSECUTOR Vs. KIMIDI ANNAM NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by Government against the acquittal of five accused persons who were charged with offences under Secs.186 and 353 of the Indian Penal Code. The appeal as regards the former charges is not pressed, and we are concerned only with the offence under Section 353, Indian Penal Code.

(2.) The prosecution case was that P.W. 6, a P.W. D. lascar, went to enforce an agreement regarding the distribution of water for irrigation between the two villages of Gattamangalapuram and Chinnamangalapuram, which both take water from the Venkamma Channel ; that, on a complaint from Gattamangalapuram people that Chinnamangalapuram people had deprived them of their agreed turn, he went to open the sluices for Gattamangalapuram, but when he went and got into the channel to open the doors, apparently the sluices were plank sluices, the accused set upon him and pushed him down into the channel and threatened to beat him and take away his life. The accused were tried by the Stationary Sub- Magistrate of Palakonda and acquitted. The grounds of acquittal are first that a P.W. D. lascar is not a public servant within the meaning of Section 353, Indian Indian Penal Code ; secondly, that, even if he is, this lascar was not discharging the duties of his office at the time of the assault; and thirdly, that the Gattamangalapuram people were not entitled to water that morning. The Public Prosecutor challenges each of these three points.

(3.) As to the first point we think the Lower Court is clearly wrong. The definition of a public servant in Section 21 of the Indian Penal Code, in which sense, of course, the words are used in Section 353, includes every officer in the service or pay of Government. A P.W. D. lascar, it is clear from G. O. No. 840-W, dated the 28 March, 1893, is a person carried on the regular establishment of the P.W. D. His duties are various, he taking his orders generally from the local overseer. The accused contend that, even so, he is not an officer, and referred us to a case in Reg V/s. Ramajirav Jivbajirav 12 Bom. H.C.Rule 1. which restricts the meaning of the word "officer" to a person employed to exercise to some extent a delegated function of Government. But even that ruling extends the definition to one whose duties are immediately auxiliary to those of some one armed with authority from Government. The case reported in The Queen V/s. Nachimuthu and Ors. (1883) ILR 7 M 18. does not help the accused, as that was a case of a carter temporarily employed by the P.W. D. In Nazamuddin V/s. Queen-Empress (1900) ILR 38C 344. a Bench held that the dictum in Reg V/s. Ramajirav Jivbajirav 12 Bom. H.C.Rule 1. is too narrow and that a salt peon, whose duties were not defined but whose general duty was to carry out the orders of his superior officer, was a public servant. If then the lascar in the course of his duties was carrying out a function of Government, namely, the distribution of water from public irrigation channels--and we think he, clearly was undoubtedly he is Government for the purposes of that particular function and is therefore a " public servant."