- (1.) THE revision petitioner / accused namely, Gopal Chettiar had engaged minors as bonded labourers after paying a sum of Rs.3,000.00 to Venkatesan S/o Muniappan, Rs.2,500.00 to Venkatesan S/o Mallan and Rs.1,000.00 to Muthu S/o Muniappan on 13.11.2003. On 13.11.2003, the Sub Collector, Hosur, had enquired him about the bonded labourers. The said case was registered by the Inspector of Police, Royakottai Police Station in Crime No.31 of 2003 for offence under Section 374 and Bonded Labourer (Abolition) Act, 1976 for offence under Sections 16, 17 and 18. The said case was proceeded with before the Judicial Magistrate, Thenkanikottai as C.C.No.66 of 2006. On the side of the prosecution, no witness has been examined and no documents were marked and on the side of the defence, no documents were marked.
(2.) ONE Rajasekaran had given 161 statement stating that he is running a provision store at Rayakottai Bazaar and the accused is a neighbor. He is preparing snacks and sweets at home and distributed them to the various shops. The bonded labourers namely, Venkatesh S/o Muniyan aged about 20 years, Venkatesh S/o Mallan aged about 20 years, Muthu S/o Muniappan aged about 21 years worked under him. All the three bonded labourers belong to the irular community which comes under the scheduled tribe category. He had further stated that the said Gopal Chettiar used to pay Rs.1,000.00, Rs.2,000.00 to whoever comes to work for preparing snacks and he paid a sum of Rs.170.00 to 270.00 as weekly payment to such labourers. Two labourers viz., Chinnarajan and Chettu escaped from his custody to Karnataka State. He further stated that the said Gopal Chettiar never gave any leave to the labourers. On 13.11.2003, the Sub Collector, Housr came to the accused shop and released all three labourers. Similarly, the below mentioned persons namely, Varadaraj, Ramamurthy, Natarajan, Selvaraj, Lalvana, Anbarasu, Janakiraman and the three victims had given their statements which are corroborative with the statements of Rajasekar.
(3.) THE charge sheet was read over to the accused and his reply was asked for. He has admitted that he was guilty. Therefore, the learned Magistrate had imposed a (1) sentence of rigorous imprisonment for six months under Section 374 of I.P.C. (2) 12 months rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.300.00 under Section 16 of 1976 of Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act, (3) 12 months rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.300.00 were imposed on the accused under Section 17 of 1976 of Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act.;