AJAB NARAIN SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case fourteen persons were put on their trial on charges of murder, riot and other offences before the Sessions Judge of Saran with four assessors. All the assessors were of opinion that all the accused were not guilty and should be acquitted. Thirteen of the accused were acquitted but one only Ajab Narain Singh has been convicted under Secs.304 and 326, I.P.C. and is the appellant before us.

(2.) It has been found by the Sessions Judge that the appellant's brother Shivanandan Singh is a lessee of an island called Jazira No. 36 which is a Government estate in Ballia District within the river Sarju, otherwise known as Gogra. The island produces a sort of thatching grass called kusaila. A number of Ahirs of Semaria had gone with a boat or boats to this island, had cut a quantity of the kumara and were taking it back to their village which is on the north bank of the river Sarju and is in Saran District. The accused party came in their own boat in pursuit and tried to seize the bundles of grass. The Ahirs resisted and were reinforced by others from Semaria village which is inhabited by about two thousand houses of that caste. The party of the accused failed to recover the bundles. They were driven off and six of their number received injuries those on two persons amounting to grievous hurt. The accused party took to their boat from which shots were fired with a shotgun taking effect on three persons Dipa, Bilas and Ratan of the party of the Ahirs. The injuries on Dipa, though 116 pellets are said to have hit him, amounted only to simple hurt; Bilas was struck by 14 pellets but among the injuries was one amounting to grievous hurt. Ratan received injuries to which he succumbed.

(3.) The trial as usual in such cases was embarrassed by neither side making an altogether candid disclosure of the facts. The prosecution witnesses manifestly were out to exaggerate and make the most of the case against the accused and in particular were interested to maintain that they had rights in the kusaila grass. They were interested to conceal or minimize acts of violence done by their own party such as might afford justification or extenuation for the firing by the accused side. On the accused side it must have been well enough known to the whole of the accused party who fired the shots from the gun; but this has not been disclosed. Ajab Narain, who, according to all the direct evidence, himself fired the gun, had stated that after firing one blank shot in the air, he dropped the gun and some other person may have taken it up and fired it. He had however on the same day sent a telegram to the District Magistrate at Chapra in which he said: "I had to open firing in self defence." The Sessions Judge has found on the evidence that the gun was fired by the Appellant Ajab Narain, and there is no doubt that the evidence fully supports this finding.