EMPEROR Vs. CHHAGAN VITHAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has been convicted of the offence of wrongful restraint under Section 341, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 15. The Magistrate found that the accused had put a tin projection over the complainant's compound-wall, so as to hang over his paved court-yard; that the projection was six feet and ten inches above the ground and was high enough for any one to move below it; but that it would be an obstruction, whenever the wall had to be whitewashed or repaired. He held that the case, therefore, fell under Section 341 of the Indian Penal Code. He remarks in his judgment that this projection did not exist before the complainant went away to attend a marriage, and that on his return it was there.

(2.) Two objections have been taken to the conviction. The first is that the complainant was absent at the time the projection was put up, and so there can bo no offence under Section 341, Indian Penal Code. On this point, however, I agree with the view taken in Arumugakadar V/s. Emperor (1910) I.L.R. 34 Mad. 547 that there is nothing in Section 339, which requires the physical presence of the person obstructed at the moment of obstruction. The case of Emperor V/s. Rama LaLa which is relied upon is on a different point, viz., whether obstruction to a person taking his cart by a path falls within the section, when no obstruction is offered to that person passing along it without his cart.

(3.) The second objection is that the projection does not prevent the complainant from proceeding in any direction such as referred to in Section 339, and the question is whether this section covers a person proceeding in a vertical direction, as he would have to do to be obstructed by this projection.