KHADEM Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In my opinion, this appeal must succeed, the conviction and the sentences must be set aside and the case must be retried.

(2.) The allegation against the seven appellants was that they had committed a dacoity in the house of the complainant on Saturday night, 16 June, at about 8 o clock in the evening. The first information was lodged at the thana, some two or three miles away, by 9 o clock. The amount of property taken away was in value only some Rs. 50 and the case for the prosecution is that the inmates of the house were allowed to leave the house and that, in a very short time, the neighbours were assembling with the result that the dacoits could not continue with their endeavours and in the end managed to get away with very little. The defence clearly denied that there was any dacoity at all and they laid stress upon certain suspicious features in the prosecution case and maintained that there were reasons why the prosecution witnesses had enmity against these accused, who lived not far off, in a neighbouring village and why the attempt to make out that they were guilty of dacoity should be indulged in. The accused people were persons who were known to the inhabitants of the house and it appears that a number of them were said to be identified by different witnesses for the prosecution.

(3.) So far as can be gathered from the charge of the learned Judge, there is undoubtedly a substantial body of evidence called by the prosecution to the effect that this dacoity took place. There are the first six prosecution witnesses, who are inmates of the house, P.W s. 7, 9 and 10 appear to be close neighbours and P.W. 8 appears to be a co-villager.