TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1964 (12) TMI 63
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....ted a man called Raja Ram on a public street on suspicion that he was an opium smuggler, took him to his house and when no contraband opium was found there, the appellant Roshan Lal got very angry and hit him on the head with his baton which injured his eye. In respect of this injury the appellant Roshan Lal was convicted on one count under s. 330 of the Code. After this beating Raja Ram was taken by the police party to the police station and kept confined in a room there for the night and was there beaten by Roshan Lal assisted by some policemen. It was however not found that the other two appellants had taken any part in administering this beating to Raja Ram. In respect of this beating the appellant Roshan Lal was convicted by the High Court on a second count under S. 330 read with s. 34 of the Code and also under s. 348 for wrongful confinement of Raja Ram with a view to extort a confession. Next morning Raja Ram was found dead in the room in a pool of blood. The three appellants thereafter carried his dead body to a jungle, burnt it up and collected the bones and ground them in a pestle and mortar and threw the remnants in a canal. In respect of the disposal of the body and th....
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....er had to be governed by the third paragraph of the section. Learned advocate for the State contended that the words "the offence" in the third and fourth paragraphs meant the offence mentioned in the second paragraph. The second paragraph speaks of "the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed" and therefore the word "offence" in the last two paragraphs must refer to the offence which the person accused under S. 201 either knew or believed to have been committed. It seems to me that so far the contention of the State is unassailable. It is not necessary to consider a case where it is known what the offence committed is, for it is not disputed that the punishment has there to depend on that offence. The argument on behalf of the State was that if S. 201 did not intend that punishment under it could be made to depend on the belief as to the offence committed, then the words " which he .... believes to have been committed" would be rendered completely otiose. It was said that an interpretation cannot be accepted which would result in a part of the language used being rendered ineffective. As at present advised, I am inclined to agree with this reasoning though for re....
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....ce under the section can be punished. It seems to me that it may legitimately be said that the words "having reason to believe" had been used in the first paragraph which set out the elements constituting the offence, to provide the requisite guilty mind. Without such provision, if evidence of an actual offence was destroyed by a person without his having reason to believe that an offence had been committed and, therefore, without believing that he was destroying evidence of that offence, he would have been made liable though he had no guilty mind. That would be contrary to the principles of criminal law. Then I find it difficult to conceive that if a person has reason to believe that an offence had been committed, he would not at the same time have formed a belief as to the kind of that offence. If a person has reason to believe that an offence has been committed, he necessarily would have reason to believe what the offence committed was. "Having reason to believe that an offence has been committed" only means that a person must be taken to have believed that an offence has been committed. The latter is no different from the expression "the offence .... which he believes to have b....
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.... Lachhman Singh was the Assistant Sub-Inspector and Kulwant Rai was a foot constable. The appellants were charged with diverse offences under ss. 330, 348, 330/ 34, 304, 342, 201 and 342/34 of the Indian Penal Code. The Trial Judge acquitted all the appellants. On appeal, the High Court found that on December 24, 1961 at Raja Ram's house, Roshan Lal for the purpose of extorting information from Raja Ram as to the illegal possession of opium, gave a danda blow to Raja Ram and injured his eye, and had thereby committed an offence under s. 330, and that Roshan Lal was responsible for the illegal confinement of Raja Ram at the Jaito police station, and together with other police officers for the be labouring of Raja Ram during- the night between the 24th and 25th December, 1961, and thereby committed offences under ss. 348 and 330/34. Accordingly, the High Court convicted Roshan Lal of the offences under ss. 330, 330/34 and 348 and passed appropriate sentences on him for those offences. The High Court also found that all the appellants "knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed and with the intention of screening the offender from legal punishment cause....
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...., therefore, liable to be punished under the third paragraph of s. 201 with imprisonment extending to three years. In support of his contention, Mr. Sachthey relied on Chinna Gangappa, In re([1931] I.L.R. 54 Mad. 68). He rightly pointed out that the High Court proceeded on the assumption that the appellants had reason to believe that an offence under s. 304 also had been committed. The correctness of this assumption is not challenged by Mr. Girish Chandra. We, therefore, proceed on the footing that this assumption is correct. Nevertheless, we cannot accept the construction of s. 201 suggested by Mr. Sachthey and his contention that the appellants are punishable under the third paragraph of s. 201 with imprisonment extending to three years. Section 201 is somewhat clumsily drafted, but we think that the expression "knowing or having reason to believe" in the first paragraph and the expression "knows or believes" in the second paragraph are used in the same sense. Take the case of an accused who has reason to believe that an offence has been committed. If the other conditions of the first paragraph are satisfied, he is guilty of an offence under s. 20 1. If it be supposed that the....
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....at he acted with the intention of screening such an offender believing that such an offence was committed, and he may be punished accordingly under the fourth paragraph with imprisonment extending to three months; but he could not be convicted on the basis of his having screened a murderer merely because he wrongly imagin- ed that an offence of murder had been committed. If the contention of the State were to be accepted, the erroneous belief or, delusion of the accused would furnish the measure of punishment, and he would be punishable under the second paragraph with imprisonment extending to seven years. It is difficult to impute such an intention to the legislature, and to hold that the minor offence of screening an offender under s. 201 is punishable more severely than the main offence committed by the main offender. It does not, in our opinion, stand to reason that s. 201 provides for punishing a minor offence more severely than the principal offence. In the case of Chinna Gangappa, In re([1931] I.L.R. 54 Mad. 68), the accused was charged also with the murder of his wife, but was acquitted on that. The death of the woman was due to blows by sticks or stones on her head. The ac....
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....d grievous hurt, and "that is punishable under section 325, Indian Penal Code, with imprisonment for seven years. Under section 201 the accused is then liable to be sentenced to a maximum of one-fourth of that seven years. 'Me learned Sessions Judge has sentenced the accused to rigorous imprisonment for five years. At the most he can be sentenced to one year and three fourths. We think that it will be sufficient if he undergoes imprisonment for one year and we reduce the sentence accordingly." It is reasonable to think, though the judgment is not explicit on this point, that the High Court found that the offence of grievous hurt under s. 325 had been committed in the presence of the accused, and the accused knew that the offence had been committed and was, therefore, punishable with one-fourth of the maximum imprisonment of seven years provided for the offence under s. 325. In this view of the matter, the ultimate conclusion of the Madras High Court may well be supported, though we cannot agree with the entirety of the observations. Mr. Sachthey next contended that the appellants having caused the evidence of the two offences under ss. 330 and 348 to disappear, committ....