JAQUES Vs. NARENDRA LAL DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the defendants in a suit for damages. The plaintiff is a man of Habigunj. Defendant 1 was the Assistant Superintendent of Police of Sylhet. Defendant 2 was the Deputy Superintendent of Police at Habigunj. Defendant 3 was the Sub-Inspector in charge of Habigunj Police Station.

(2.) The plaintiff's case is that from April 1930 peaceful and well-regulated processions and meetings were held in Habigunj Sub-Division according to the programme of the Indian National Congress; that on 18 June 1930 the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Habigunj without any justification issued an order under Section 144, Criminal P. C., prohibiting such meetings and processions and that the people of Habigunj considered the order to be illegal and unjustifiable and were determined to disobey the same. Accordingly at 3-30 p.m., on 1 July 1930, nine civil resisters called Satyagrahis started in procession through the principal street of Habigunj town, followed by a motor lorry in which there were three men including the plaintiff with red cross badges on their dress. They meant to render first aid to the Satyagrahis who might be wounded or injured by the Police; that the civil and military Police under the instructions of the three defendants assaulted the nine Satyagra his and then advanced towards the lorry in which the plaintiff and two other members of the ambulance were and without justification assaulted the plaintiff. Defendant 3 struck him a blow and other constables assaulted him with the result that he fell down unconscious, his left elbow joint was dislocated and it has been permanently injured. The plaintiff claimed damages of Rs. 509.

(3.) The defence was that the Sub-Divisional Magistrate was justified in issuing the order under Section 144, having regard to the intense excitement of the people during the period of propaganda of the Civil Disobedience Movement by meetings and processions and that the procession of the Satyagrahis together with the so-called ambulance lorry carrying the plaintiff and others and the people following the lorry formed one and the same assembly in violation of the order under Section 144, Criminal P. C., and that defendant 1 judging the assembly to be an unlawful assembly in exercise of the authority vested in him under Section 127, Criminal P. C., commanded the assembly to disperse and when his command was disobeyed, he ordered his constables to disperse the assembly by force; that the lorry men had no legal right to make use of the red cross and that only minimum force was used in dispersing the crowd; that defendant 1 had ordered the policemen that no blows would be struck above the waist and that when the men in the lorry refused to disperse, the policemen only struck the sides of the lorry and there was a scramble amongst the occupants who jumped off and fell one upon another but that the defendants were not aware of any injury received by the plaintiff. The trial Court decreed the suit and the decree was affirmed in appeal. The learned Subordinate Judge in a long and careful judgment has found that the order of the Sub. Divisional Magistrate under Section 144, Criminal P. C., was invalid and illegal. He found that from January 1930 there was a great agitation in the whole of the sub-division and meetings and processions were organized throughout the sub-division. Civil disobedience was launched with the result that the people were excited to break the salt laws and forest laws, not to pay Chowkidary tax, to abandon schools and to burn foreign cloths. Lectures were delivered asking the people to go to jail and even to sacrifice their lives and that they should not be afraid of bloodshed; that the Government Officers were molested in various ways and on a certain day of a Hartal the Magistrates had a great difficulty in reaching their offices. The learned Subordinate Judge found that the Magistrate could reasonably be of opinion that the situation prevailing at the time was sufficiently urgent to call for an order under Section 144, Criminal P. C., but that the order was invalid and illegal, inasmuch as it did not comply with the provisions of Clause (3), Section 144, Criminal P. C., which runs as follows: An order under this section may be directed to a particular individual or to the public generally when frequenting or visiting a particular place.