RAM RAJ CHAUDHURY Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners have been convicted under Section 212, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment on a charge of harbouring one Prithvi Ahir, who is said to have been concerned in a serious dacoity committed in July 1942, with the intention of screening him from legal punishment. Prom the judgments of the Courts below, it appears that the Sub-Inspector in charge of Nawanagar police-station, having received confidential information that Prithvi Ahir was concealing himself in village Barasar, proceeded to that village, and at about 2 A.M. he found Prithvi Ahir and three others including the two petitioners sleeping in a marai in front of the house of the accused.

(2.) According to the prosecution, the marai belonged to the petitioners, and, though the evidence on the point is not conclusive, it may for the purpose of deciding this application be assumed that the petitioners were its owners. The crucial question in this case is whether the petitioners knew or had reason to believe that Prithvi had committed an offence of dacoity. Neither of the Courts below has referred to any direct evidence on this point, but they have merely inferred from certain circumstances that the petitioners must have known that Prithvi was concerned in the alleged dacoity.

(3.) The learned Sessions Judge in dealing with this matter observes: This man Prithvi, it appears, belongs to Shah-pur jurisdiction, but it can hardly be supposed from the place and circumstances in which he was arrested that the accused were unaware of his identity or antecedents. The evidence is that both the appellants were found sleeping along with Prithvi and Joga Kandu in the same marai. It is inconceivable that Prithvi would thus have been sheltered by the accused in their marai if he was merely a stranger to them; and there can be no doubt, in my opinion, in all these circumstances that the appellants knew that he was a proclaimed absconder and had knowingly harboured him in "their marai."