AKHIL KISHORE RAM Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two applications have been heard together, the facts in both being similar. The petitioner was brought before the Magistrate on six charges which were tried in two batches of three each, and was convicted of cheating on all the charges and sentenced in each trial to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 18 months. These sentences have been directed to run concurrently. He was also sentenced at each trial to pay a fine of Rs. 500 in default; to suffer further rigorous imprisonment for six months; the sentences of fine and of imprisonment in default are cumulative. Appeals to the Sessions Judge of Patna were dismissed.

(2.) In revision, some technical objections have been taken in the petition against the manner of institution and the regularity of conduct of the proceedings at the trial. But Mr. Manuk at the hearing did not press these; indeed there is nothing in them of substance. The main argument put forward on behalf of the petitioner is that assuming him to have done those things which the Courts below have found that he did, he has committed no offence and the second contention is that even if the acts amounted to cheating, the sentences imposed are excessive. The facts are that the petitioner Akhil Kishore Ram resides at Katri Sarai, police station Giriak, in Patna District, where in his own name and under thirteen other aliases he carries on a business of selling charms and incantations which he advertises in a number of newspapers in several provinces of India, and despatches by value payable post to persons answering the advertisements. Six of these transactions have been the subject-matter of the charges.

(3.) Mr. Manuk at the outset asked us to hear in mind that what he called the materialist attitude which regards spells and charms as a fraudulent pretence and sale of them as a swindle, though widely held, is not shared by a large body of opinion in the East particularly in India and among Hindus, where the efficacy of magical incantations is still relied on by many and thought to have a religious basis; and he maintained that there was nothing in the evidence to show that the petitioner did not propound the spells or incantations advertised by him in good faith and with a genuine and pious belief In their efficacy; he urged that a conviction should not be founded on the mere fact that the Court had no faith in the efficacy of the incantations. We may recognise the existence of contrasting points of view, hut I would express their opposition differently. One outlook is exemplified by words which the dramatist Shakespeare puts in the mouth of one of his characters: It's not in mortals to command success. But we ll do more, Sempronius, we ll deserve it.