Mullick, J.:— This appeal arises out of a riot which is alleged to have taken place on 16th December, 1917 in a village in the District of Purnea, because a Civil Court peon attached some moveable property belonging to a judgment-debtor named Abdul Gafoor. It is alleged that the common object of the unlawful assembly was to illegally rescue the attached property. It has been found by the learned Sessions Judge that a riot with the alleged common object did take place, and that the appellants Khidir, Bux and Jabbar Bux and four others were members of the riot. With regard to Abdul Gator the learned Judge has found that he remained at the door of his house some distance from the riot ana, he has been found guilty of an offence under S. 147, I.P.C, read with S. 114, of having abetted the riot by calling out “Run, run, my properties are being taken away.” The learned Sessions Judge has sentenced Khidir Bux to rigorous imprisonment for six months under S. 147, I.P.C, and Abdul Gafoor to a like term of imprisonment for an offence under S. 147/114, I.P.C He has sentence Jabbar Bux to rigorous imprisonment for six months under S. 147, I.P.C, and rigorous imprisonment for one year under S. 323, I.P.C, the two terms to run concurrently.
2. The assault in the course of the riot is alleged to have consisted of one lathi blow by Jabbar Bux on the head of Tahir, who was assisting to carry away the attached property, and of a lathi blow on Kamaruddin by Khidir Bux after Tahir had been injured. Tahir appears to have been able to walk home a distance of 8 to 9 miles with assistance on that day, but later on, about nightfall, he was taken by cart to the Kishengunj hospital, where he died on 18th December from haemorrhage due to the injuries on his head. Kamaruddin is alleged to have had a scratch which he showed to the police, but which was apparently not shown to the doctor. Now the first point raised by the learned vakil for the appellants is that the warrant of attachment was illegal, firstly, because it was not signed by the Munsif who issued it, but by his sheristadar; and secondly, because it does not bear the seal of the Court. With regard to the defect as to the signature, I think the onus of proving that the sheristadar had no authority to sign the warrant was on the defence, because under Section 114(e) of the Evidence Act, a document being admittedly an official document the Court may presume that all acts in connexion with it were legally performed. With very great respect to their Lordships of the Calcutta High Court in Deputy Legal Remembrancer v. Mir Sarawarjan(1), I venture to think that it is not for the prosecution in such a case as this to prove the authority of the officer signing it, and if their Lordships intended in their ruling to lay down that the onus in every case was upon the prosecution to prove that all acts done in connexion with official documents were done legally, then I respectfully venture to differ.
3. The second point however is fatal to the prosecution. The Code of Civil Procedure in O. 21, R. 24, requires that the warrant shall be sealed with the seal of the Court. The injunction is mandatory and unless it is complied with, the attachment is in my opinion illegal. Their Lordships of the Privy Council in Ram Dayal v. Mahtab Singh(2) held in reference to a warrant, which did not bear the signature of the issuing Court, that the whole execution proceedings connected with that warrant were illegal and void. In my opinion therefore the attachment having been illegal, it was not an offence to resist the attachment and there fore the common object charged was not an unlawful common object and therefore the charge of rioting cannot be sustained. The conviction of Khidir Bux and Abdul Gafoor under S. 147 read with S. 114, I.P.C, must be set aside. Khidir Bux has also been convicted under S. 323, I.P.C, for having struck Kamaruddin, but that assault appears to have been very slight and having regard to the period which he has already spent in jail it is not necessary to impose a separate sentence for this offence. Therefore both Abdul Gafoor and Khidir Bux will be set at liberty:
There remains the case of Jabbar Bux. The learned Sessions Judge, disagreeing with the assessors who found the accused guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under S. 304. I.P.C, has sentenced him to one year's rigorous imprisonment under S. 323, I.P.C, only. Now the learned Sessions Judge appears to think that Jabbar Bux had no intention of causing death, or any knowledge that death was likely to be caused by his blow, nor any intention to voluntarily cause grievous hurt, and that he accidentally struck the deceased on the head with his lathi. Notice was issued upon Jabbar Bux to show cause why his conviction should not be revised and the sentence enhanced and after hearing the learned vakil on his behalf, I am unable to see how the learned Sessions Judge's finding can be supported. Every man must be presumed to intend the natural result of his acts.
4. If the appellant pleads accident, it is for him to show that it was an accident, and I see no ground for the assumption on the part of the learned Sessions Judge that it must have been an accident under the circumstances. Certainly there is no evidence to justify such an assumption upon the record. The post mortem report shows that there were two large fractures of the skull and it is clear that although one blow was struck, that blow must have been dealt with great force. In my opinion the assessors were probably right in coming to the conclusion that an offence under S. 304, I.P.C, had been committed, but taking the most favourable view to the accused he ought to have been convicted at least of an offence under S. 325, I.P.C It is to be noticed that Jabbar Bux had no concern with the civil dispute and his intervention in the attachment of the property appears to have been purely gratuitous. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, we do not think that a sentence of less than three years' rigorous imprisonment will meet the justice of the case. The order that we therefore pass is that the conviction and sentence binder Ss. 147 and 323, I.P.C, are set aside and Jabbar Bux is sentenced under S. 325, I.P.C, to rigorous imprisonment for a term of 3 years. The imprisonment already suffered by him will count towards this sentence.
5. Thornhill, J.:— I agree.
V.S/R.K
6. Order accordingly.