In Re: Mohamed Meera Sahib and Others

Horwill, J.—The petitioners and others were charged with rioting and with committing a number of offences in the course of the rioting. The

primary object of the rioting was to secure the release of a person who had been arrested.

During the course of the rioting one of the petitioners is said to have committed the theft of a purse. It is therefore argued that since the theft of a

purse was not one of the common objects of the assembly and was committed by one only of the accused without the assistance or abetment of

any of the others, this charge of theft could not properly be joined to the other charges. Section 239 (d) of the Criminal Procedure Code however

permits all persons being tried together for different offences committed in the course of the same transaction; and although it is probably true that

the theft was not one of the common objects of the assembly, it certainly was committed during the course of the transaction in which all the other

offences were committed.

The other point of law is with regard to the interpretation of Sections 54 and 56 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The person who made the

arrest which led to the rioting is a Head Constable in charge of an outpost, who was ordered to investigate into an alleged offence by the Sub-

Inspector of the Station within whose limits the outpost was situated. The first clause of Section 54 (1) permits a police officer to arrest without a

warrant any person concerned in any cognizable offence or against whom information has been received or a reasonable suspicion exists of his

having been so concerned. There can therefore be no doubt that if this clause is read alone the arrest by the Head Constable was a valid one, and

that therefore the persons who sought to release the arrested person from the lawful custody of the constable were guilty of an offence. It is

however argued that Clause (i) of Section 54 (1) has to be read with the 9th clause of that sub-section and also with Section 56 (1). The 9th

clause does not seek to limit in any way the application of the other clauses. It merely introduces another class of persons who can be arrested

without a warrant, viz., those persons for whose arrest a requisition had been received from another police officer. Section 56 (1) does not purport

to confine or restrict the application of Section 54. It lays down the procedure to be adopted by an officer in charge of a Police Station desirous of

requiring an officer subordinate to him to arrest without a warrant. No such order was given by the Sub-Inspector in this case to the Head

Constable; and so we are not concerned with the procedure to be adopted if the Sub-Inspector had issued such an order. The arrest made by the

Head Constable was not made because of any power delegated to him by the Sub-Inspector but in the exercise of his own powers to arrest

conferred by the first clause of Section 54 (1).

All the other points raised are questions of fact, concerning which there are concurrent findings of the Magistrate and of the Sessions Judge. The

revision petition is dismissed.