NURAL AMIN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants in this case, Nural Amin, Gannu Meah and Kabir Ahmad, were convicted by the Assistant Sessions Judge of Chittagong (1) of an offence under Section 436/34, I.P.C. and (2) of an offence under Section 120-B, I.P.C., the trial of the former being by jury and the latter with the aid of the same jurors as assessors. Briefly, the prosecution story is that the appellants and others (1) in furtherance of the common object of all, committed mischief by fire by setting fire to certain timber shop on 7 February 1938 and (2) agreed with one another to do an illegal act, viz. to cheat various Insurance Companies by (a) causing the aforesaid shop to be burnt down, and (b) obtaining money from the Insurance Companies on fraudulent misrepresentations as to the cause of the fire and the amount of the damage done. To deal with the second charge first. The evidence against the appellants consists mainly of the statements of the approver P.W. 14, Furrok Ahmed, and P.Ws. 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 36 and 40.

(2.) The approver P.W. 14 states that one day, some time before the occurrence, Nural Amin took him to the shop of Amir Ali (P.W. 15) and there talked to him about setting fire to the shops and getting the insurance money. Then on the date of the occurrence itself, Nural Amin's brother Eshaque took witness to Nural Amin's shop, where appellants Gannu Meah and Kabir Ahmad and others were already assembled. Some time later, Nural Amin arrived with two tins of petrol. Then, after the party had had some tea, Nural Amin said : "I had spoken to you of insurance before. Today the shop-houses are to be burnt down." Witness at first refused to help, but was prevailed upon by Gannu Meah and Kabir Ahmad. So, witness Eshaque and some others went first to Gannu Meah's shop, then to Kabir Ahmad's shop, and then to various other shops, in each of which they tied some kerosene-soaked gunny bags to beams and rafters and also spread some over the timber. Witness then returned to Gannu Meah's shop, where after a while, Nural Amin, Gannu Meah, Kabir Ahmad and others arrived by car. All of them inspected the gunny bags and other arrangements and asked witness and others to pour petrol over the timber, which they did in Gannu Meah's shop and other shops. Finally, witness and Eshaque set fire to the shop of Haji Amin Shariff, while others did the same to Gannu Meah's shop.

(3.) This story has been amply corroborated by other testimony. We have first of all the important and significant circumstances that successive shops of Nural Amin, each of them insured, have been burnt down in 1935, 1936 and now in 1938. P.W. 9, Nanuram Tewari, speaks to the events of 1935, when Nural Amin got Rs. 589-8-0 from the New Zealand Insurance Company on account of loss by fire. P.W. 11, Jitendra Nath Sen, speaks to the fire of 1936 when Nural Amin got Rs. 9500 from Lloyds. The shop burnt down on the present occasion was also insured with Lloyds. These successive fires indicate, as indeed has been said in Illus. (a) to Section 15, Evidence Act, that they were not accidental but part of a design in which Nural Amin must necessarily have had a share.