RAM GHULAM SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for revision against the order of the District Magistrate, Hamirpur, dated the 10 November, 1924, convicting the applicant under Section 186, Indian Penal Code and sentencing him to pay a fine of Rs. 50 in a summary trial.

(2.) The prosecution was started on the written complaint of B. Bhagwati Prasad Sinha, Sub-Divisional Officer who is said to have been obstructed by the applicant in his attempts to re-organise and reconstitute the Korara panchayat according to the orders of the District Magistrate.

(3.) The Sub-Divisional Officer in his complaint Exhibit D says that he called the Panches with their records at his camp in Damar and they came as instructed. He proposed to them the inclusion of a member of the depressed classes in the Panchayat but this displeased Ram Ghulam applicant who is one of the Panches and he eyed the other Panches and declared that the Panchayat would cease forthwith. He, the Sub-Divisional Officer, argued with him for a while but this only increased his defiance and the other Panches remained sullen. Then Shiam Sunder, the brother of the Sarpanch, who had brought the papers, was asked to keep the papers with him and he took them away but shortly after he returned and threw the basta containing the papers and went away and when he was sent for he came with Ram Ghulam applicant and when asked to explain his conduct, Ram Ghulam replied that the Panchayat had ceased to work and Shiam Sunder repeated the same. Then next morning when he (the Sub-Divisional Officer) went to Korara to ascertain; the local feelings about the present Panches, he discovered that Ram Ghulam had been instigating others not to work in the Panchayat and as a result of it the Sarpanch refused to work and the other Panches gave only a half- hearted consent.