Abdul Qayum v. State of Bihar, AIR 1972 SC 214 190

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Abdul Qayum v. State of Bihar, AIR 1972 SC 214 190

Key words – 

Pickpocket, robbery, accusations, poor family, Probation of Offenders Act, Probation Officer’s report, Appellant’s father, IPC 

Facts of the case –  

The prosecution’s argument was that Jagdish Kumar Singh went to Mahalla Pather Ki Masjid in 1964 with his friends to see a parade on the day of Vijaya Dashami. He had Rs. 56 in his pant pocket, and around 1:30 AM, when he got off the rickshaw and prepared to buy a pan and cigs from a shop, he realized that someone had already committed robbery and his purse was missing. He cried out, and when his buddies saw two boys racing away, they went after them. They were able to catch the appellant with the public’s assistance after he promptly passed the money from the purse to his associate Shamim, who managed to flee. Shamim and the appellant were both found guilty.  

The defendant received a 6-month R.I. sentence after being found guilty under section 379 of the I.P.C. Along with another suspect, he was involved in the theft.  He was 16 years old at the time of the incident and roughly 18 years old when he was found guilty.   The Probation Officer recommended that he be released on probation in accordance with section 6 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, but the trial court rejected the recommendation on the grounds that he was a close friend of the other accused, a seasoned criminal.  The High Court upheld the ruling after amendment.

Contention of the parties – 

There is no indication in the probation officer’s report that the accused is “an associate of accused Shamim.”   According to the High Court, he appears to be a friend of Shamim.  There was no justification for assuming that the Appellant was Shamim’s companion, even if he was a seasoned criminal as evident from the Probation Officer’s report on that accused. According to the Probation Officer’s report from the week of August 7, 1965, the accused was roughly 18 years old and in otherwise healthy physical and mental condition.  Despite being illiterate, he had a talent for tailoring and was employed by the Bihar Tailoring Works.   He displays correct behavior towards his father and brothers and shows interest in his line of work as a tailor.

A.I.R. 1965 (Vol. 52) S.C. 444. 385 In the end, the probation officer expressed the opinion that, given the circumstances, releasing the offender on probation might be an appropriate course of action because there has been no report against his character and no prior conviction has been proven against him.

Judgments – 

However, the appeal against the conviction and punishment was denied, and his request to be granted a benefit under the Act was also denied.  After that, he filed a Revision Petition in the High Court of Patna challenging his conviction and sentence. According to the court’s judgment, the appellant only argued that because he was under 20 years old on the date the revision was set for hearing, he should have been given the benefit of the Act’s provisions. The Act’s requirements were not taken into consideration by the trial court, the appellate court, or the high court.

The Probation Officer had not recommended granting benefit under the Act to the other accused Shamim, in light of the fact that he was a hardened criminal and a frequent pickpocket, according to the High Court, which then cited the reasons provided by the Trial Court. As a result, the High Court rejected the Revision Petition because, in its opinion, the Trial Court was justified in not granting the benefit under the Act because of “the petitioner’s association with such an individual.” We believe that neither the Trial Court, the Appellate Court, nor the High Court gave the Act’s obligation its full attention.

Conclusions – 

In light of this, the appeal is granted, the sentence is vacated, and it is instructed that the man be freed in accordance with Section 4 of the Act upon entering into a bond in the amount of Rs. 500/- with his father as surety, promising to appear before the trial court whenever requested within a year and to behave well during that time.  The Appellant must post a bond, and the Appellant’s father must post a surety bond, as directed by the Trial Court.  His bail bond will remain in effect until then and be ruled void after the directives have been followed. V.P.S. 386. 

References – 

Case mine (link not available) 

This article is written by Prakriti Mitra of Techno India University, Intern at Legal Vidhya. 

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