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Calcutta High Court · body

1944 DIGILAW 19 (CAL)

Tamizuddin Master v. Asimuddin

1944-01-16

body1944
ORDER Henderson, J. - This is a rule calling on the District Magfistrate of Mymensingh to show cause why the conviction of the petitioners under S. 147, Penal Code, should not be set aside. In his explanation the learned Additional District Magistrate says that he has no explanation to submit except what was written by the trying Magistrate. The rule was issued only on ground No. 4 attached to the petition which is concerned not with the judgment of the trying Magistrate but with the judgment of the Sessions Judge. It is apparently not disputed that a fight took place in connection with a certain plot of land. The prosecution case was that it was in the possession of the complainant and accordingly the common object set out in the charge was to dispossess Asimuddin, the complainant. The learned Sessions Judge was not satisfied that the disputed land was in possession of the complainant. He, however, upheld the conviction on his own finding that there was a common object of causing hurt to members of the complainant's party. It is impossible to uphold this order. The petitioners had to meet a certain case set out in the charge. It is impossible to substitute a totally different common object put forward for the first time in the judgment of the appellate Court. If such a charge had been framed I have no doubt that the petitioners would have had no difficulty in showing that they had no common intention of beating the complainant's party as such. The opinion of the learned Sessions Judge was that both parties had documents and had exercised acts of possession in the immediate past. They were determined to have a free fight to settle the matter that way. On that view it might have been possible to frame a charge with a common object of asserting by show of force the right of petitioner 1 to the disputed land. The rule is accordingly made absolute. The convictions and sentences passed on the petitioners under S. 147, Penal Code, will be set aside and the fines, if paid, will be refunded.