What SC and HCs have said about Section 399/402 of IPC

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 25

The Supreme Court and the High Courts have over the years settled the debate over the police “overhearing” the dacoity plan of the accused as in the cases under ection 399/402 of the IPC as highly improbable.

But despite that most of these cases have the same story of an informant giving information to the police about five to six people, armed with weapons, planning dacoity, and when the police reach there, they overhear their plans and arrest them. And despite being armed, accused usually don’t offer any resistance.

The police also do not join independent witnesses during their arrest and recovery of weapons from them.

In ‘Suleman versus State of Delhi through Secretary’, which was a case of section 399/402, the Supreme Court in 1999 observed that it was doubtful that accused would be speaking so loud about dacoity plan that the police personnel standing outside a room could hear it.

In a similar case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in ‘Bagga alias Bangu vs State of Haryana’ in 2011, commented, “It is improbable that after the secret information was received till the police party reached at the spot, the accused were continuing to repeat their plan. It is also very improbable that at the very nick of the moment, when the police party reached at the spot, the accused started their conversation.” The same view was expressed by the high court in Piru & ors vs State of Haryana in 2015.

Regarding recovery of weapons from the accused, the Supreme Court in ‘Chaturi Yadav and others vs State of Bihar’ in 1979 observed that the mere fact that the accused were found at 1 am with some of them armed with guns didn’t prove that they had assembled for the purpose of committing dacoity or for making preparations to accomplish that object.

A similar view was taken by the Delhi High Court in ‘Des Raj alias Dass vs the State’ in 2000 and the Punjab and Haryana High Court in ‘Mahavir vs State of Haryana’ in 2010 that mere assemblage and recovery of firearms didn’t prove charge under section 399/402 of IPC.

Arrest of armed accused without resistance

A 2003 case of planning to commit dacoity of Karnal, ‘Jasbir Singh aka Javri aka Jabbar Singh vs State of Haryana’, reached the apex court, after conviction of six people at trial court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court upholding the punishment. A division bench of Justices Dipak Misra and UU Lalit commented in 2015 that “strangely” despite the high court considering overhearing of dacoity plan by police as exaggeration and padding on part of Investigating Officer, the accused were convicted.

“It is not natural that the six accused, four of whom were armed with deadly weapons, neither offered any resistance nor caused any injury to any of the police personnel before they are apprehended by the police. It is strange that all the accused were wearing blue shirts, as if there was a uniform provided to them,” said the apex court.

Similar observations were made by the Chhattisgarh High Court in ‘Santosh Kumar and Etc vs State of Chhattisgarh’ in 2006. The judgment said, “…the appellants were alleged to be armed with country-made pistols, cartridges and jute bombs and making preparations to commit dacoity, yet they neither attempted to flee nor resorted to firing to avoid their arrest by the appellants.”

Despite these judgments, the police story remains the same.