LexCHERUBIN GREGORY versus THE STATE OF BIHAR
Open in Lexace · Ask the AI about this caseJudgment (excerpt)
- 4 S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 199 company was also subject and which was no longer affected by the will of the quondam sovereign. The agreement of the Ruler bound the Municipal Committee only indirectly, because the Ruler to whom the amount recovered would have gone, had agreed to forego it, but the Ruler's desire that octroi should not be collected ceased to operate from the moment he ceased to be the Ruler. The Resolution of the Municipal Committee was thus in order and the demand was rightly made. The point about limitation was properly abandoned because it has no substance. The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs. Appeal dismissed. CHERUBIN GREGORY t!. THE STA TE OF BIHAR (B. P. SINHA, C.J., J. c. SHAH AND N. RAJAGOPALA AYYANGAR JJ.) Criminal trial-Trespasser-Duty of owners towards trespas- sers Indian Penal Code S. 99, 103, 304A. The appellant was charged under s. 304-A of Indian Penal Code for causing the death of a woman. The deceased was residing near the house of the accused. The wall of the latrine of the house of the deceased had fallen down about a week prior to the day of occurrence and so the deceased along with others started using the latrine of the accused. The accused protested a~ainst their coming there. The oral warnings however, proved ineffective and so he fixed up a naked copper wire across the passage leading upto his latrine and that wire carried current from the electrical wiring of his home to which it was connected. On the day of the occurrence, the deceased went to the latrine of the appellant and there she touched the aforesaid fixed wire as a result o~ which she died soon after. The trial and the appellate court convicted and sentenced the appellant under S. 304A of the Indian Penal Code. Hence this appeal. 1963 Bengal Nagpur Cotton Mills v. Board of Revenue, Madhya Pradesh & Others H idayatullah f. 1963 fuly, 31 1963 Cherubin Gregory v. The State of Bihar Ayyangar /. 200 SUPREME COURT REPORTS l1964J Held: (!) The plea of the right of private defence of property was not sustainable for the reason that the type of injury caused by the trap laid by the accused could not be brought within the purview of S. 99 or 103 of the Indian Penal Code. (2) A trespasser was not an outlaw, a caput z.,pinem. The mere fact that the person entering a land was a trespasser did not entitle the owner or occupier to inflict on him personal injury by direct violence and the san1e principle would govern the in~ fliction of injury by indirectly doing something on the land the effect of \vhich he must know was likely to cause. serious injury to the trespasser. CRIMINAL APPELLATE JuRISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No. 3 of 1962. Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated September 20, 1961 of the Patna High Court in Cri- minal Appeal No. 124 of 1960. D. Goburdhan, for the appellant. S.P. Verma, for the respondent. July 31, 1963. The judgment of the Court was <leli- vered by AvYANGAR J.-This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment of the High Court of Patna dismissing an appeal by the appellant against his conviction and the sen- tence passed on him by the Sessions Judge, Champaran. The appellant was charged with an offence under s. 304A of the Indian Penal Code for causing the death of one Mst. Madilen by contact with an electrically charged naked copper wire which he had fixed up at the back of his house with a view to prevent the entry of intruders into his latrine. The deceased Madilen was an inmate of a house near that of the accused. The wall of the latrine of the house of the deceased had fallen down about a week prior to the day of the occurrence-July 16, 1959, with the result that her latrine had become exposed to public view. Consequently the deceased, among others, st~rted using the latrine of the accused. The accused resen- ted this and made it clear to them that they did not have his permission to use it and protested against t~eir coming there. The oral warnings, however, proved inef- - - ' 4 S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 201 fective and it was for this reason that on the facts, as found by the courts below, the accused wanted to make entry into his latrine dangerous to the intruders. Though some of the facts alleged by the prosecution were disputed by the accused, they are now concluded by the findings of the courts below and are no longer open to challenge and, i
Excerpt shown. Read the full judgment & AI analysis in Lexace.