Sukhan Ahir vs Emperor

James, J.—The petitioner has been required u/s 109, Criminal P.C., to execute a bond for four hundred rupees, with two sureties of two hundred rupees each to be of good behaviour for one year. It appears that in July 1929 the Superintendent of Police of Saran, believing that a gang was about to assemble for the purpose of committing deceit in an old mathia at Dudhaila in the Sonepur jurisdiction, arranged that the mathia should be watched by a strong party of police including himself. At about 9 p.m. fourteen or fifteen men entered the mathia where they lighted a dhibri and then extinguished it.

Half an hour later the signal was given for the raid by the police party. There was some delay on one side of the mathia which enabled the men assembled to escape; but the petitioner was pursued and captured by the Superintendent himself. Afterwards the mathia was searched and a garasa and a dhibri were found there.

Mr. Cammiade on behalf of the petitioner argues that the order of the learned Magistrate is illegal, because the petitioner is a resident of the Sadr Sub-Division of the Saran District, so that he was not taking precaution to conceal the fact that he was present within the Magistrate''s jurisdiction. He cites the decision in Reshu Kaviraj v. Emperor [1918] Cri.L.J. 825 in support of his argument that taking precautions to conceal his presence within the jurisdiction means something more than a momentary effort at concealment to avoid detection or arrest, and that it refers to a continuous act. In the case of Gagan Chandra De and Another Vs. Emperor, it was pointed out by the learned Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court that in Section 109(a) the idea is that come one may be taking precautions to conceal himself within the local limits of the Magistrate''s jurisdiction, not to conceal himself as one who hides from a policeman, but to conceal the fact of his infesting the Magistrate''s jurisdiction, and that in such case, if there is reason to believe that this is a precaution taken with a view to commit an offence the Magistrate can require him to give security.

In Emperor Vs. Bhairon and Others, , it was pointed out that Clause (a), Section 109, should not be read as applying to a person who merely took steps to conceal himself in the sense of concealing his presence in the way in which a criminal conceals his presence from the police when he was about to commit an offence, and that the offence contemplated in Section 109(a) is that a person, probably though not necessarily coming from outside the Magistrate''s jurisdiction for some nefarious purpose and taking precautions to conceal the fact that he is present in that jurisdiction. In the case of Rambirich Ahir and Another Vs. King-Emperor, . Sir Dawson Miller held that Section 109(a), Criminal P.C., applied to any person taking precautions to conceal his presence within the local limits of the Magistrate''s jurisdiction, and that it wag not necessary in order to bring a person within the operation of that clause to show that he had followed a continuous course of conduct in taking precautions to conceal his presence.

The petitioner in the present case lived in Chapra, town, twenty or thirty-miles from the place of occurrence. He was found hiding in the mathia on this night, twenty or thirty miles away from his come, still within the jurisdiction of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Chapra; but manifestly, as the learned Sessions Judge has pointed out, taking precautions to conceal the fact that he was still within the Magistrate''s jurisdiction by hiding in the mathia avoiding the use of a light, and by running away as soon as the police came up to the place. It is true that the petitioner endeavoured to prove that he was not taking steps to conceal his presence within the Magistrate''s jurisdiction by the examination of a witness, Nathuni Singh, who said that on that evening the petitioner had been making enquiries regarding a missing buffalo, but this witness was not believed by the learned Magistrate.

Mr. Cammiade argues in the second place that the order of the learned Magistrate should be set aside, because there was no evidence to prove that the petitioner was preparing to commit an offence. I consider that the precautions taken by the accused and his companions to conceal the fact that they were present at the mathia, together with their conduct when the police began to approach it, warrant the inference that the petitioner and his companions were taking their precautions witha view to commit an offence, The application is accordingly dismissed.