PARSHADI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts of this case are set out in the judgment of Mr. Ardagh, the Sessions Judge of Shahjahanpur, very clearly and there is only one comment in regard to the views expressed by him that we shall have to make.

(2.) The facts are very clear, and if there is any point apparently established by the evidence for the prosecution which does not in fact represent the truth the accused have only themselves to blame for it. They have set up foolish defences of alibi, in one case supported by evidence that is most probably fabricated. We have therefore no assistance from them to enable us to determine exactly what happened. It is clearly established by the evidence for the prosecution that certain residents of village Gour went to fish in a tank within the limits of village Sherapur. While they were fishing they were deliberately attacked by certain of the villagers of Sherapur who pretended to think that they had a grievance against the Gaur villagers for fishing in the tank and who were determined to take away from the Gaur villagers the fish which they had caught. In the course of the assault committed on the Gaur villagers Jamal and Chandan who stood their ground, were injured, Chandan fatally. All the six appellants have been sentenced to transportation for life under Section 302 read with Section 149.

(3.) We have already described the grievance of the Sherapur villagers as an alleged grievance and we have so described it because all the evidence indicates that the Gaur villagers had at least a joint right, if not the sole right, to fish in the Sherapur tank. In any event there could be no possible question in these circumstances of a right of the Sherapur villagers to defend their property for it was clearly a case in which they had plenty of time to have recourse to the public authority, the police station was only three miles away. The people who had taken the fish were very well-known to the Sherapur villagers and the case was wholly different from one where a person finds an unknown thief stealing his property in the middle of the night. It has only been possible to criticize the case for the prosecution in respect of two points. It is suggested that there was a delay in making a report. That delay might possibly be accounted for in many ways. No attempt was made on behalf of the defence to elicit the reasons for the delay by cross-examination-no questions were asked on the point.