Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1979SC1518; 1979CriLJ941; (1980)1SCC700; [1979]3SCR785; 1979(11)LC809(SC)
Krishna Iyer, J.1. This is a petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus in view of alleged illegal detention of a large number of persons under guise of the judicial process.2. Even without going into details, we are satisfied that petitioners Nos. 3 and 4 should be released on their own bonds to the satisfaction of the trial court subject to their reporting to the nearest police station once every fortnight and appearing in court whenever called upon to do so to take their trial. We direct accordingly.3. So far as petitioner No. 1 is concerned, the State in its affidavit swear that there is no such person in custody in connection with any case. This matter will be scrutinised further by the State so that it may satisfy itself that no one is in custody except under due process of law.4. This Court in its earlier order dated March 5, 1979 has directed the State to file a statement containing particulars of the under-trial prisoners who have been confined in Jail for a period o...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1979SC1949; 1979CriLJ1310; (1980)1SCC530
D.A. Desai, J.1. This appeal under Section 2-A of the Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Jurisdiction) Act, 1970, by Pohalya Motya Valvi, original accused No. 1 in Sessions Case No. 12/71 on the file of Sessions Judge, Dhulia in Maharashtra State arises from a judgment rendered by the High Court of Bombay in Criminal Appeal No. 1329 of 1971 filed by the State of Maharashtra against the judgment of the Sessions Judge, Dhulia, setting aside his acquittal and convicting the appellant for having committed an offence under Section 302, Indian Penal Code and sentencing him to suffer imprisonment for life.2. Parshi Motya Valvi, the deceased was the brother of the appellant and they were residing together. Motibai, P.W. 4 is the widow of Parshi Motya Valvi. Appellant was married to one Daharibai Who was subsequently divorced. Appellant was keen to contract second marriage and was persuading his brother deceased Parshi Motya to arrange for cash, if necessary, by sale of some cattle heads be...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1981SC476; 1980CriLJ1474; (1980)1SCC491; 1979(11)LC670(SC)
S. Murtaza Fazal Ali, J.1. The appellant has been convicted under Section 420 read with Section 34 IPC. and sentenced to 18 months' rigorous imprisonment. We have gone through the judgment of the High Court and we find that the High Court has also based the conviction of the appellant merely on surmises and conjectures There is no evidence at all to show that the appellant practised any fraud on the complainant and thereby induced him to part with the cloth nor there is any evidence that the appellant knew that the complainant was not paid the money. The only circumstance that has been relied upon by the prosecution against the appellant is that the appellant No. 1 was a partner of Accused 2 and they had hired a room where the pieces of cloth were stored. That by itself, however, is not sufficient to show that the appellant had any knowledge of the inducement practised by Accused 2.2. The evidence does not exclude the possibility that even though accused 2 may have induced the complain...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1979SC1760; 1979CriLJ1334; (1979)4SCC482; 1979(11)LC661(SC)
S. Murtaza Fazal Ali, J.1. This appeal must succeed on a short point. By the order impugned the Addl. District Judge filed a complaint under Section 467/109 against the two appellants. It appears that in a suit filed by the plaintiff basing his claim on a will executed by the testator the appellants are alleged to have been attesting witnesses and taken part in the execution of the will. The Trial Court of the Sub Judge as also the Addl. District Judge in appeal held that the will was not genuine and was a forged document. In fact, after going through the findings of the judgments in the suit it would appear that all that the Courts really found was that the will was executed under suspicious circumstances and not that it was a down-right forgery. Even so after issuing notice to the appellants the Court of the Addl. District Judge which filed the complaint has not at all given any finding as to the part played by the appellants in the execution of the will. Nor has he clarified as to h...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1979SC1453; (1979)12CTR(SC)147; [1979]118ITR57(SC); (1979)3SCC345; [1979]3SCR781; 1979(11)LC537(SC)
Untwalia, J.1. This is an appeal by certificate from the Order of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana dismissing the appellants' writ application in limine. Sandhu Transport Company (Private) Limited is a private limited company. The two appellants were its directOrs. One of them was a Managing Director. A resolution was passed on the 13th November, 1961 for a voluntary liquidation of the company at the instance of its creditOrs. In respect of some years ending with the assessment year 1964-65 a huge amount of income tax to the tune of Rs. 1,34,319/- remained due from the company. The Income Tax Officer issued a notice on 7th of February, 1970 against appellant No. 2 under Section 179 of the Income Tax Act 1961, hereinafter called the Act, to show cause why action should not be taken against the directors of the company for realisation of the arrears of income-tax due from the company. A similar notice was issued to appellant No. 1 on the 11th of November, 1970. Both the appellants fi...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1979SC1519; 1979CriLJ943; (1979)2SCC628; [1979]3SCR768
Krishna Iyer, J.1. Concurrent convictions by both the courts below have, by a rule of restriction and circumspection which this Court often adopts under Article 136, persuaded me to circumscribe the leave to appeal to the critical question of punishment, usually answered by courts untouched by current humane criteria and drowned in the superstition that the gravity of the crime and the tariff prescribed in the Penal Code have a monopolistic hold on the sentencing court. Quackery in criminology is a deficiency in forensic justicing-especially disastrous is sensitive areas like juvenile sentencing when unlettered punishment becomes unwitting crime.2. The present case is an illustration of judicial habituation to prescribing sentences conditioned by the offence and its milieu, forgetting the fundamental fact that the human delinquent, not the criminal deviance, is the cynosure of punitive processing. The further Gandhian axiom follows that crime is like disease, and correction, not cruelt...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : 1980Supp(1)SCC771; 1979(11)LC545(SC)
D.A. Desai, J.1. This appeal by special leave arises from a suit OS No. 10/66 filed by the plaintiffs respondents being the heirs of one Abdul Karim Rowther against the defendant No. 1 appellant for a declaration that the sale deed dated 30th May 1962 was fraudulant in character, void and not binding on the respondents and for possession of the properties covered by the sale deed which suit was dismissed by the Distt. Munsiff, Pudukkottai but in First Appeal being A. S. No. 68/70 filed by the respondents the Subordinate Judge, Pudukkottai decreed the suit and the Second Appeal being 206/72 by the original defendant No. 1 was dismissed in limine though with a speaking order by the High Court. 2. Abdul Karim Rowther, husband of respondent 1 and father or respondents 2 8 (original plaintiffs), and Abdul Rahiman Rowther the father of defendant 1 were full brothers. They had four other brothers. Respondents alleged that they had certain share in the properties set out in the Schedule annexe...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1980SC102; 1980CriLJ189; (1980)1SCC490; 1979(11)LC660(SC)
S. Murtaza Fazal Ali, J.1. In this appeal by special leave, the appellants have been convicted Under Section 302/34 IPC for having caused the murder of one Shanker Khond. A detailed narrative of the prosecution case is to be found in the judgment of the High Court and it is not necessary for us to reproduce the same here.2. The High Court has based the conviction of the appellants on the uncorroborated testimony of a single witness, namely, C W. Markanda. We have gone through his evidence and we are not at all impressed with his statement. Evidently, the witness kept quiet for about six months and did not dis. close the incident to anybody. The excuse he puts forward is that he was threatened by the accused persons not to disclose what he had seen. Apart from even from his evidence, it appears that he has made wholly discrepant statements which are irreconcilable. Having regard to the number of infirmities appearing in his evidence, we find it wholly unsafe to found the conviction of t...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : 1986Supp(1)SCC475
O. Chinnappa Reddy,; P.N. Shinghal and; Y.V. Chandrachud, JJ.1. The Rent Controller, the Sub-Judge in appeal and the District Court in revision, came to the conclusion concurrently that the contractual rent of Rs 100 per month would be the fair rent of the premises. Sitting in revision under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure the High Court has remanded the matter to the Sub-Judge, with liberty to the parties to lead further evidence before him. We do not think that the remand was really necessary in the context of the concurrent finding recorded by the three courts. Accordingly we set aside the order of remand passed by the High Court dated March 31, 1969 and confirm the order passed on June 22, 1968 by the District Court fixing the fair rent at Rs 100 per month.2. The appeal is accordingly allowed but there will be no order as to costs....
Tag this Judgment!Court : Supreme Court of India
Reported in : AIR1980SC106; 1980CriLJ190; 1980Supp(1)SCC372
S. Murtaza Fazal Ali, J. 1. In this appeal by special leave, which is directed against the judgment of the Patna High Court, the appellant No. 1, Kailash Prasad Kanodia has been convicted under Section 302 and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Appellant No. 2, Gatru Mal Kanodia has been convicted under Section 326 and has been sentenced to three years R.I. A detailed narrative of the prosecution case is to be found in the judgment of the High Court and it is not necessary for us to repeat the same all over again.2. The High Court as well as the Sessions Judge have accepted the prosecution case and have affirmed the conviction of the appellants as indicated above. The only point that was urged before us by Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Kohli appearing for the appellants, was that the entire case must fail because the statements recorded by the Officer In-charge D. P. Sharma (P.W. 12) on a rough piece of paper were not made available to the appellant at the trial which has caused serious preju...
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