DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT AND LEGAL REMEMBRANCER Vs. CHULHAN AHIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the accused were convicted by the Deputy Magistrate of Satan of offences under Secs.144 and 427, read with Section 149, Indian Penal Code. Their conviction were set aside by the Sessions Judge on appeal, and the case now comes before us in appeal from his judgment.

(2.) The facts of the case are exceedingly simple and they are that the appellants finding their fields flooded cut a channel through the Railway to let the water run off their fields. The learned Sessions Judge has get aside their conviction on the ground that neither their intention nor the means employed by them to effect their intention were criminal, He holds that their intention was rot to cause mischief but to cause the water to run off their fields. In this, however, he makes not altogether an uncommon error in confusing motive with intention. Their intention was to make a ditch through the Railway. Their motive was to free their fields from water. There can be no doubt that what they did to the Railway amounted to mischief and that they must have been fully aware of this fact. The learned Sessions Judge is also wrong in finding that the means employed by them were not criminal. It appears that about 50 men were present, some of whom carried spears. Of these some 10 or 15 only were engaged in digging. It, therefore, seems certain that the whole constituted an unlawful assembly, with the common object, as alleged, of damaging the Railway.

(3.) On looking at the evidence it appears that the act of mischief and the unlawful assembly are very plainly proved. There is, however, no proof of an offence under Section 144,