ISMAIL SARKAR Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the three appellants before us, Ismail, Meher and Amir Sheikh, have been convicted under Section 366 and Section 376, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced each to five years rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) The trial was by Jury in the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge of Mymensingh. By a majority of four to one the Jury brought in a verdict of guilty and the learned Judge, though not agreeing with the verdict, accepted it inasmuch as for a reason given he was unable to say that it was perverse. We may then at the outset say that it is no longer the law that before making a reference the Judge must be satisfied that the verdict is perverse. It is sufficient that he should be clearly of opinion that a reference is necessary for the ends of justice, and possibly the Judge did not mean to say more than this, that his dissent was not so complete as to enable him to arrive at any such clear opinion.

(3.) The case for the prosecution was that at about 1 to 2 a.m., on the night of the 12th of August 1917, some 6 men came to the house of one Alok Baishnabi, and that after breaking open the door four of them entered: two of them dragged out and held Alok, while the other two dragged out her adopted daughter, one Jagat Priya, a young woman of about 16 years of age. The six men eventually carried Jagat Priya to a jute field near a banyan tree where three of the six left. The remaining three, whom by the light of the moon Jagat Priya recognised as the three appellants, next proceeded to ravish her, one after the other. Thereafter she was taken to the tank of Ismail or his father Ijjat s Bari, and thence by Ismail alone to his house where she spent the night; she made her escape next morning at about 9 a.m.