EMPEROR Vs. YAKUB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Reference made by the Assistant Sessions Judge of Dacca under Section 307, Criminal P.C. recommending that the unanimous verdict of the jury convicting the accused under Secs.147 and 325/149, Indian Penal Code, be set aside.

(2.) The accused persons are six in number, Yakub, Sahadat, Bihal, Niaz Ahmed, Ali Ahmed and Mahamed. Yakub is brother-in-law of Bihal (the two being the husbands of two sisters). Sahadat and Mahamed are sons of Yakub Niaz Ahmed and All Ahmed are sons of Bihal.

(3.) The prosecution case shortly stated was this: In village Shyampur there is a Namasudra basti populated mostly by Nawasudras. In this village there is the homestead in connexion with which the present occurrence took place. It lies on the north of a small khal, and also on the west of it with a sugarcane field lying between. Just to the north of it is the bari of one Raj Mohan Mistry who is the person who lost his life in this occurrence. This homestead together with the sugarcane field belonged to two brothers Harilal and Akshoy in equal shares. In or about April 1924 Harilal sold his undivided 8 annas share of the homestead to the accused Yakub and removed to his father-in-law's house. Akshoy died sometime ago, and his son Dharani in April or May 1924 mortgaged his undivided 8 annas share with possession to the wife of one Jumair. Rajendra, the sister's son of Harilal and Akshoy, purchased the right, title and interest of the mortgagee and then sold it to one Hafizuddi, son-in-law of the accused Yakub. The case for the prosecution is that Harilal on selling his share removed his huts leaving only some materials of one hut on the land. It is also their case that Rajendra sold one of his two huts to a man named Abin and removed the other. Rajendra's brother Akhil had also two huts in the homestead--a south bhiti hut and a cook-shed and these two used to be occupied by Rajendra, his second wife Radharani, his son Satish by his first wife, Akhil's son Lakhi and some others. These two huts also, the prosecution say, were sold by Rajendra to Hafizuddi but the family continued to live there as before with the permission of Yakub and Hafizuddi, The prosecution case is that the accused persons came to the bari on the morning of the 23 September 1921 variously armed in order to turn out the inmates by force, and when there was resistance the occurrence took place resulting in some of them being injured and in the death of Raj Mohan Mistry who had come to interpose.