K.V Muhammad v. Chakkappayyan Kannan

JUDGMENT

The defendant who is the appellant is a Circle Inspector of Police. The lower Courts found that he arrested the plaintiff illegally and unlawfully without any justifying cause. For this false imprisonment, damages were awarded against him in a sum of Rs. 50. The appellant admits the arrest on 2nd February, 1936, but says that it took place at about 3 P.M while the plaintiff's version is that he was arrested at about 12 noon. The plaintiff's evidence has been accepted by both the Courts below as regards the time of the arrest which becomes important in view of one of the defences raised by the appellant.

Plaintiff's case was that he was arrested not because of anything that he said or did justifying arrest but because of some private grudge. On the other hand, the defendant alleged that he arrested the plaintiff because it was apprehended that he would take out a procession with music past a mosque, as he did two days earlier. The lower Courts found that the cause given by the defendant for the arrest was not true and that the defendant had really no information in his possession before the arrest that the plaintiff was likely to be a party to any such procession justifying his being taken into arrest to prevent a probable breach of the peace.

The plaintiff has not appeared in this Court. But the facts necessary for a proper understanding of the case have been fully placed before me by Mr. Pocker, the learned Counsel for the appellant. He raised two points on behalf of his client. Firstly, that as the appellant was prosecuted for the same act and acquitted by the Joint Magistrate, there is a bar to the civil action by reason of S. 53 of the Madras Police Act, and secondly, that there was nothing to show that he had no credible information of the likelihood of a breach of the peace contemplated by the plaintiff in the matter of the procession with music before the mosque. If he had such information, as is probable that he possessed, in view of the report (Ex. V), the arrest was made bona fide and was therefore valid.

Section 53 of the Madras District Police Act does not help the appellant. Before the bar enunciated in the proviso can be held to apply, the act for which the prosecution had been launched must be found to be an act contemplated by the statute itself. Even in S. 53, the act complained of and referred to in its opening sentence is an act done “under the provisions of this Act.” There is no warrant whatever for holding that the word “act” in the proviso is used in a more comprehensive sense than the word “act” in the body of the section itself.

A realisation of this difficulty made the appellant to urge a feeble contention before the lower Court that he apprehended the plaintiff as a disorderly and suspicious character under the powers vested in him under S. 21 of the Act. Apart from the fact that he gave no such reason in justification of his act at any earlier period, it is also true that there was nothing to show that the plaintiff was a disorderly or suspicious character within the meaning of this section. Merely because he was a member of the procession on the 31st August, 1936, it could not be concluded that he was a disorderly or suspicious character. For such description of a man, much more would be necessary in the shape of prior conduct and history, etc. Moreover, the arrest was about noon and Ex. V came into existence at about 3 or 3-30 P.M As pointed out by the lower Court, it is not likely that the security proceedings initiated under Ex. V some hours after the arrest led the defendant to arrest the plaintiff earlier. He could have arrested him only after the security proceedings were started and, ordinarily, after a warrant was issued and not before.

Defendant was himself not sure of the ground for the arrest of the plaintiff. In one place he says that he arrested him because of the offence committed by the man on 31st January 1936. In another place he asserted that it was because he was a disorderly and suspicious character. The third reason given by him is that it was done in view of the security proceedings launched against him, his case being that it was after the proceedings were launched that he arrested the plaintiff at 3 or 3-30 P.M, which, however, has been found to be untrue.

I agree that in considering the question of the lawfulness of an arrest or imprisonment, distinctions have been, and will have to be, drawn between the powers of a police officer and that of a private citizen and that there may be cases where the former may without a warrant arrest on reasonable suspicion, “reasonable” being understood to mean a bona fide belief that an offence had been committed or is about to be committed, necessitating the arrest of the person concerned. Even as regards the powers of a police officer, there is divergence of authority as would be seen from Trebeck v. Croudace (1) and Isaacs v. Keech (2) on the one hand and Ledwith v. Roberts (3) on the other. In the last mentioned case Ledwith v. Roberts which arose under the Vagrancy Act, it was pointed out that the powers of a constable to arrest without warrant was confined to persons frequenting or loitering who came within the description of suspected persons or reputed thieves and that such persons can be apprehended without warrant if they already were at the time of the arrest by reason of their previous conduct suspected persons or reputed thieves. It was not enough for the constable to allege that he had reasonable grounds to suspect that such person was loitering for the purpose of committing a crime. In the present case, bona fides on the part of the appellant was negatived by both the Courts.

Mr. Pocker said that the question of bona fides must be considered not in a very abstract way and in the detached atmosphere of a Court room, but with reference to the situation in which the appellant found himself at the time. Apart from the grounds that the defendant himself has given for the arrest, there is nothing else in the situation which prevailed at the time from which we can hold that there was warrant for any honest belief on the part of the appellant that the plaintiff was a man who had to be arrested or that the plaintiff's arrest was necessary for any particular purpose or reason.

I hold that the lower Courts have reached a correct conclusion and dismiss the second appeal. But there will be no order as to costs as the respondent does not appear.

Leave to appeal is refused.

N.R.R