MATHURA SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A rule was issued in this case in respect of 5 out of 19 petitioners who were in the first instance tried and convicted by Mr. Rahman, a First Class Magistrate of Bihar, in the district of Patna under Section 147, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to nine months rigorous imprisonment each, but on appeal their sentences were reduced to six months imprisonment by the Additional Sessions Judge of Patna. The prosecution case is that one Mathura Prasad Singh of village Gorewan is the purchaser of two and half annas milkiat in Touzi Nos. 11029, 10874 and 10775 of village Nerut. He purchased it from one Mt. Premdei Kuer in the month of Phagun 1339 F.S.

(2.) There was a mutation case between him and one Naurangi Singh, a co-sharer of the deceased husband of Premdei Kuer, and the case was decided in favour of Mathura Prasad. The property purchased by Mathura Prasad includes 34 bighas of khudkasht lands of which two plots bearing Survey Nos. 348 and 429 are those with which we are concerned in this case. On plot No. 348 there was sugarcane grown and plot No. 429 happens to be an orchard. In January 1933, Mathura Singh sent an elephant to the village to feed on the sugarcane crop on the khudkasht land while some of his men were staying in the orchard.

(3.) For some days there was no obstruction but on the 5 February at about 10 a. m., a mob including the petitioners came and assaulted Mathura Prasad's men and also inflicted injuries on the elephant. The defence was that the purchase by Mathura Prasad was a colourable transaction and that he never got possession of any of the properties said to have been purchased by him; that on the day of occurrence his men had gone to take forcible possession of the khudkasht land and that when opposition was offered, a fight took place in which some persons were injured. Some of the accused pleaded that they were falsely implicated in the case on account of enmity. It was also alleged that the sugarcane crop standing on plot No. 348 was not grown by the men of Mathura Prasad but that it was grown by one Karu. The present petitioners were sent up for trial along with the other accused persons and they have been convicted and sentenced as stated above.