Bhabesh Chandra vs Emperor

Courtney-Terrell, C.J.—The three appellants, Bhabesh Chandra Hazra, Manmatha Nath Ghosh and Jyotirmtoy Roy have been convicted by the Sessions Judge of Manbhum-Sambalpur, Purulia, u/s 120-B, Penal Code, read with Sections 4(b) and 5, Explosive Substances Act, and also u/s 6 Explosive Substances Act, and have been sentenced each of them to seven years'' rigorous imprisonment. The three accused persons are resident at Jharia in the District of Manbhum in which the learned Judge presides. Bhabeah Chandra Hazra was the cashier of the Niluripatra Colliery and Jyotirmoy Roy was employed at the Golakdih Colliery which also is the property of the proprietor of the Niluripatra Colliery where the accused 1 had been employed.

These two, Nos. 1 and 3, came from contiguous Districts in Bengal, and as far as their work was concerned, they lived a quarter of a mile of each other at Jharia. The second appellant, Pramatha Nath Ghosh is a resident of the Bankura District in Bengal, but he carried on a coal business at Jharia about half a mile from the Niluripatra Colliery and occupied a rented house there.

It has been satisfactorily shown that these three persons have for some considerable time been on very intimate terms. That is established without the slightest doubt and no serious dispute has arisen in this case on that point. Indeed, it has been argued that they have been engaged in much the same class of work and being interested in labour matters it was not unnatural that they should be on intimate terms. Jyotirmoy used to take his meals at a mess close to Hazra''s quarters and sometimes he used to sleep there. Now, a group of persons, with whom they are said to have been in conspiracy, for the most part lived in Calcutta and some of them were convicted in a case which was heard in Calcutta and was called the Dynamite case.

At the house of one of them, a woman named Maya Debi, was found with a very large quantity of dynamite in addition to other property and Maya Debi and another person Dasrathi Haldar were convicted in that case and sentenced to five years'' rigorous imprisonment. That the two groups of persons were in constant communication is made manifest by the link consisting of Dasrathi, who at times visited Jharia, where he is shown to have met and been in communication with the three appellants and of two at least of the appellants who visited Calcutta where they have been shown to have been in communication with Dasrathi and it may here be said that the defence have throughout this case offered no explanation whatever as to the nature of the communication carried on through the medium of Dasrathi.

It is perfectly true that it is upon the prosecution to prove a case of conspiracy. Nevertheless where groups of parsons are found in constant communication and each group appears to have a single form of activity which is characteristic of the group, communications. between the two must receive the interpretation what the common objective of the two groups is the subject thereof unless a satisfactory explanation is offered, but no such offer was made by the defence here. It has been demonstrated that Dasrathi visited Jharia on three separate occasions, once in July, once at about the time of the pujas and the third time in November or December. On the first occasion he was entertained at a feast at the house of Pramatha Nath Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Roy was present and on the same occasion, but in the day time he was seen in association with Hazra the first accused.

On the second occasion he called again (and evidence has been given to show that he wished to communicate with the first appellant), but being unable to find Hazra left a letter for him and then went away, and on the third occasion he again met all the three appellants. The appellants, far from seeking to explain the nature of the business upon which Dasrathi had come to see them or either of them, contented themselves with a mere statement that the evidence of the witnesses concerning those visits was false. They had taken the same attitude with regard to their visits when they were seen with Dasrathi in Calcutta.

Now, the evidence further consists of documents and certain articles, to which I will refer later, found at the residence of Maya Debi when she was arrested in connexion with the dynamite find case. There is correspondence, one letter being in the handwriting of Jyotirmoy addressed to an individual named Lalit Da and this letter gives an account of the meeting which took place at the house of Pramatha Nath Ghosh on the occasion of the visit by Dasrathi to Jharia in July, and the reference there to that particular meal is so clear that there can be no dispute about it.

An attempt was made on behalf of the appellants to argue that it might refer to a feast in another year than the particular year in question, but no offer was made to show that such another feast had ever taken place.

The reference to the nature of the food and the circumstances in which the meeting took place pins the writer to the fact that the feast referred to was the one at which Dasrathi was present and it is clear also that the addressee of the letter Lalit Da was (whoever he may be) a member of the party. The fact that that letter was found in the possession of Maya Debi clearly shows the community of interest with regard to the subject matter of the letter, the writer of the letter being Jyotirmoy, the addressee of the letter Lalit Da and Maya Debi, and the one thing that was common between these persons was to get possession of explosives and plans to secure the possession of such explosives. Further there was found in the house of Maya Debi an exercise book in cypher and this cypher exercise book contained an entry of the name of Debi.

To whom that word applies is not precisely known, but the person to whom the word is applied is said to be "C/o Hazara" the first appellant. So much for the material documents found at the house of Maya Debi. There was also found at the house of Maya Debi, what is called throughout the case, a harmonium box. This box which was exhibited in the course of the trial was evidently a box constructed specially for carrying a small harmonium and that box has been identified by a well established chain of evidence as the one with which the three appellants from Jharia were concerned in the following way. A witness was called who says that he was present at 11 o''clock in the morning on the 3rd January at the house of Pramatha Nath Ghosh, the second appellant, and the witness there found, as he says, three Babus present. One of them whom he subsequently identified as Dasrathi, gave to him this particular box and he identified it as being the same box and picked it out from five similar boxes at an identification parade. He says that he was directed by Dasrathi to take it to the house of Bhabesh and to give it to Bhabesh''s wife. In the evening of the same day Jyotirmoy, the third appellant, asked the same witness to take that same box to Jyotirmoy''s quarters and on the morning of the following day, that is to say the 4th, the same witness was again employed by Jyotirmoy to take it to the Railway station and the witness did take it to the Railway station and left it there on the platform in the possession of Jyotirmoy.

It has been shown that Jyotirmoy took the box to Calcutta. There is a gap in the evidence as to what happened after Jyotirmoy left for Calcutta and the arrival of the box in the possession of Maya Debi. But it is perfectly obvious that, having regard to the evidence as to the identity of this box and its travel, if any explanation was to be offered consistent with innocence the burden of giving such an explanation lay upon the shoulders of the defence, for it has been established in connexion with the Dynamite case that Maya Debi in the association of Dasrathi occupied the position of "custodian" of this box and that she was properly so styled is indicated by the discovery of a large quantity of dynamite in her possession. It was evidently her function to take care of dangerous articles and such articles as might be incriminating.

This sharing of duties as between a man and a woman is not uncommonly met with among this class of conspirators. It was for the defence, if they wished to offer a satisfactory explanation, to show why it is that a box containing something, what it is not known, was sent to Calcutta for the custody of the custodian. So much for the correspondence and the articles found in the possession of Maya Debi.

We now turn to what was discovered at Jharia. On searching the house of the first appellant we find a series of letters addressed by Jyotirmoy to Bhabesh. Then we find in Jyotirmoy''s house a series of letters written by Dasrathi to Jyotirmoy. The references made in these letters are certainly obscure, but that they relate to something which both were anxious to keep secret and not to reveal in the letters is manifest and those letters themselves have been proved by satisfactory evidence to be in the handwriting of Dasrathi. In addition to this there was a letter found written by an individual named Brajalal Mitra, who has been shown to have been one of the Calcutta conspirators, to Jyotirmoy. That letter is similarly mysterious in its wording and from its obscurity obviously one can infer that it was intended that no one should understand that what was referred to therein and shows that there was secret communication going on between the two.

Lastly there was the discovery at Jharia of three shell cases intended to be used as bombs. They were of a characteristic type consisting of brass shells out with grooves in a way which is quite familiar to any one who has some experience of detonating bombs and the grooves are so distributed as to enable the shells to burst into fragments and so spread injury. The shells were not actually loaded with explosives when they were found, but they were ready for such explosives to be filled into them and if so filled would be highly dangerous. Moreover they were bombs which are commonly met with and used by assassins. Now, these shells could not be put to any other known purpose. They were discovered in the following way: It appears that Bhabesh had, outside his quarters at the colliery in a back garden, concealed these objects.

Having looked for them on a subsequent occasion he was unable to find them and therefore he employed a witness named, Sukhai Gowala, to search for them and after some considerable search the witness managed to dig them up and find them. Bhabesh instructed the witness to take them away secretely and throw them into a tank which lay much further to the south, evidently thinking that the possession of such incriminating articles would become exceedingly dangerous. The witness accordingly, so he says, took them to the tank, but finding a number of people present there he feared discovery and in addition to that he was extremely frightened by the appearance of the bombs which he recognized as being highly nefarious articles.

Therefore he retired away from the tank and at a place near a broken wall, which he was ultimately able to find again, dug a hole and buried the bombs there remarking the place where they had been buried with three bricks.

He actually took police to the place, first of all where he had originally dug out the bombs where they had been hidden by Hazra and where the broken remains of the pot in which the bombs had been placed were found left behind. Then be took the police straight to the place where he had in fact buried the bombs and there the three bricks were found marking the place, and digging it up the three bombs were disclosed. There is no reason to disbelieve his evidence. Indeed he was first charged and then afterwards released and allowed to give evidence on behalf of the prosecution. It is obvious that he was a man of very ordinary intelligence whose complicity in this conspiracy in any real sense of the word could hardly be asserted. I have merely gone through the evidence in a brief way to indicate the general lines upon which it has been adduced.

The learned Sessions Judge in a most careful and well arranged judgment has reviewed every part of the evidence and reviewed it in such a way that the relevance of each part is displayed to its best advantage and with his conclusions I entirely agree. The participation of all the appellants in the conspiracy to use explosive substances in an unlawful manner has been amply demonstrated and not one of the appellants has made the slightest offer to give a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances. I have passed over the matter of certain confessions which are not important merely because the evidence, quite apart from the confessions, to my mind, establishes the guilt of each of the appellants. I would therefore dismiss this appeal.

Agarwala, J.

I agree.