RAMJI LAL Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The six applicants have been fined Rs. 26 each under Section 147, Indian Penal Code and Rs. 26 each under Section. 323, Indian Penal Code, for rioting and voluntarily causing simple hurt to certain other persons. They have also been bound over to keep the peace under Section 106, Criminal P.C.

(2.) It appears that a case under Section 498, Indian Penal Code, was proceeding between the husband of one Mst. Chandro and some person or persons who were connected with the applicants. A bailable warrant was issued for the arrest of this Mst. Chandro and was delivered to a head constable and three constables. These officers proceeded to the village where the woman was alleged to be living, i.e., the village of Barhauna. The complainant in the 498 case and friends or relations of his from the village of Barla joined the police party. All these persons reached Barla early in the morning and proceeded to arrest Mt. Chandro with the result that they were attacked and some of them were injured.

(3.) The defence was that the police party had entered the house, where Mt. Chandro was, in the early hours of the morning before day break and that they had been beaten because they were mistaken for dacoits. The Courts below very rightly disbelieved this story. They have found how ever that the fact that the warrant was a bailable warrant was never conveyed to Mst. Chandro or to her friends. The learned Magistrate has given quite good reasons for thinking that this was so and the learned Sessions Judge has agreed with him. The result of this finding was that the Courts below came to the conclusion that the arrest of the woman was strictly not a legal arrest; but they found further that the applicants had exceeded such right of private defence as they may have had. The learned Sessions Judge was also inclined to apply the provisions of Section 99, Indian Penal Code, and to hold that no right of private defence existed. It is clear from the reasons given by the Magistrate for thinking that the fact that the warrant was bailable was not communicated and that the failure to give the information was deliberate. The Magistrate was influenced in part by the fact that the complainant in the case under Section 498, Indian Penal Code, and his friends were particularly desirous of obtaining possession of the woman.