N Criminal Appeal No 38 of 1950
Appeal from the judgment and order of the High Court of Patiala Teja Singh CJ and Gurnam Singh J dated 5th October 1950 in Criminal Appeal No 28 of 1950 affirming the conviction and sentence of the appellant by the Sessions Judge of Sangrur
Gopal Singh and Kartar Singh for the appellant
Narinder Singh Advocate General for the Patiala and East Punjab States Union Jindra Lal with him for the respond ent
Jai Gopal Sethi R L Kohli with him for the Cavea tor 1951
December 19
The Judgment of the Court was deliv ered by FAZL ALl J
This is an appeal against the judgment of the High Court at Patiala upholding the conviction and sentence of the appellant who was tried by the Sessions Judge of Sangrut for the offence of murder and sentenced to death
373 The prosecution story is a somewhat long and complicated one but ignoring unnecessary details the material facts may be shortly stated as follows  On the 5th October 1949 there was a quarrel between the appellant and one Darbara Singh in the course of which the appellant attacked the latter with a phawra a cutting instrument
About that time Gurmail Singh the deceased person returned to his house which was close to the house of Darbara Singh from his cotton field where he had been working in order to take tea for his companions who were still working in his field
The appellant asked Gutmail Singh to lend him a spear to enable him to kill Darbara Singh but since the latter refused to do so there ensued a quarrel between him and the appellant in the course of which they exchanged abuses and grappled with each other and the fight was stopped only by the intervention of cer tain persons present at the place
It appears that the appellant was greatly affected by this quarrel and thereaf ter he is said to have armed himself with a rifle and at tacked 3 persons in the vicinity of Gurmail Singh s cotton field
He fired firstly at Kartar Singh son of Satwan Singh while the latter was returning to his house from the field of Gutmail Singh but he was not hurt
Soon after that while Gurmail Singh was returning to his field after attending to his buffaloes in a garden which was nearby the appellant chased him and fired at him thereby causing his instantaneous death
Lastly he is said to have fired at Kartar Singh son of Bishan Singh and one Jangir Singh while they were raising an alarm but the bullet missed them
Upon these allegations the following three charges were framed against him  1 That you fired a shot at Gurmail Singh deceased with rifle PI with the intention of killing him and caused his death and thereby committed an offence pun ishable under section 302 2 That you fired a shot at Kartar Singh and Jangir Singh with rifle PI with the intention of causing death and made an attempt to cause their death 374 section 307  3 That you  fired a gun shot at Kartar Singh so Satwan Singh with the intention of killing him and made an attempt to cause his death and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 307  It appears that the appellant was an Instructor in the Home Guards
and the rifle which he is said to have used had been given to him by his superior officer with 20 rounds of ammunition
To support their version of the occurrence the prosecu tion examined 3 eye witnesses whose evidence has been ac cepted by both the courts below after careful scrutiny
The learned Sessions Judge acquitted the appellant of the second and third charges under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code holding that there was no convincing evidence that the appellant intended to murder Jangit Singh and the other 2 persons
He however convicted him of the first charge under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to death which sentence was later confirmed by the High Court
The learned counsel for the appellant had very little to argue on the merits of the case but he seriously contended that there had been a misjoinder of charges which could not be tried together under the law and the illegality so committed had vitiated the whole trial of the appellant
It appears that in the High Court the line of argument on this point was somewhat different from the line adopted in this court
What was stressed in that court seems to have been that the three incidents in respect of which the appellant was charged not having happened in the course of the same transaction they could not have been properly made the subject of one trial and for this contention reliance was placed mainly on section 235 1of the Criminal Procedure Code which provides that if in one series of acts so connected together as to form the same transaction more offences than one are committed by the same person he may be at one trial for every such offence
 It should be noted 375 that that section is only one of the exceptions to the general rule laid down in section 233 of the Code that for every distinct offence there shall be a separate charge and every such charge shall be tried separately
In this court no reference was made to section 235 but the argument was confined to the question as to whether the present case falls within another exception of section 23 3 which is contained in section 234 1 which runs as follows  When a person is accused of more offences than one of the same kind committed within the space of twelve months from the first to the last of such offences whether in respect of the same person or not he may be charged with and tried at one trial for any number of them not exceeding three
 It was argued before us that even though only 3 charges have been framed against the appellant he has in fact been tried for 4 offences and not 3
The 4 offences are said to be these  1 Committing the murder of Gurmail Singh 2 Attempting to murder Kartar Singh son of Sarwan Singh 3 Attempting to murder Jangit Singh and 4 Attempting to murder Kartar Singh son of Bishan Singh
The learned counsel contended that the fact that the appellant has been acquitted of the last 3 offences and convicted only of the first offence was immaterial to the point raised by him and we have only to see whether all the offences mentioned above could be properly tried together
In our opinion the short reply to this contention is that the second charge which relates to the appellant firing at Kartar Singh and Jangir Singh is not a charge with respect to 2 offences but is a charge with respect to one offence only
The evidence adduced by the prosecution shows that the appellant fired only one bullet
The word offence has been defined in the Criminal Procedure Code as meaning any act or omission made punishable by any law for the time being in force
There seems to be 49 376 nothing wrong in law to regard the single act of firing by the appellant as one offence only
On the other hand we think that it would be taking an extremely narrow and arti ficial view to split it into 2 offences
There are several reported cases in which a similar view has been taken and in our opinion they have not been incorrectly decided
In Queen Empress vs Raghu Rai1 where a person stole several bullocks from the same herdsman at the same time it was held that only one offence had been committed
In Promotha Nath Ray vs King Emperor2 it was held that misappropria tion in regard to several account books constituted only one offence
In Johan Subarna vs King EmPeror3 it was held that when an attempt to cheat a number of men by speaking to them in a body had been committed one joint charge was valid
In Poonit Singh vs Madho Bhot 4 it was held that only one offence had been committed by a person who gave false information in one statement to the police against 2 persons
In Sudheendrakumar Ray vs Emperor5 a person who was chased by 2 constables had fired at them several times but it seems to have been rightly assumed that the firing did not constitute more than one offence though the point was not specifically raised or decided
In our opinion there is no substance in the point raised though we should not be understood as laying down the wide proposition that in no case can a single act constitute more than one of fence
The other points urged on behalf of the appellant before us were somewhat unsubstantial points relating to the merits of the case which it is not usual for this court to allow to be raised in appeals by special leave
In our opinion this appeal is without merit and it is accordingly dismissed
Appeal dismissed
Agent for the caveator Vidya Sagar


Summary:
 The lands of the appellant were situated on the banks of the river Tapti known for its frequent floods
They were sought to be acquired under the Land Acquisition Act 1894
The preliminary notification declaring the intention to acquire the said land was issued under section 4 of the act and published in the Government Gazette on April 30 1970
It was notified that the proposed acquisition was for the public purpose for extension of the village site for the purpose of housing 12 families who had been rendered homeless because of floods in the Tapti river
An individual notice under section 4 of the Act was served on the Appellant on May 2 1970
He filed his objections against the proposed acquisition on May 12 1970 and filed additional objections on June 20 1970 and July 6 1970 respectively
After the consideration and rejection of the said objections the notification of the lands under section 6 was issued on December 8 1970
Notices under section 9 were issued on January 8 1971
The appellant challenged the aforesaid acquisition in a writ petition in the High Court on various grounds the main ground being that the provisions of sections 4 and 6 of the Act were ultra vires the Constitution
The High Court dismissed the petition but granted a certificate of fitness under Article 133tc of the Constitution 777 In the appeal to this Court on behalf of the appellant it was conceded 1 that the vires of sections 4 and 6 could no longer be called in question but it was submitted that t under the provisions of the Bombay Land Revenue Code 1879 it must be established that the lands in the existing village site are insufficient for the extension of the village site before any acquisition can be resorted to 2 the land acquisition authorities had failed to consider what were the other lands available which could have been more conveniently acquired and 3 since several years have passed from the date of the Notification under section 4 the victims of the floods must have been housed and rehabilitated elsewhere and hence the public purpose for which the lands were sought to be acquired does not survive
Dismissing the Appeal the Court  HELD t
The challenge to the vires of sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 no longer survive in view of the validity of the sections having been upheld by this Court in Manubhai Jehtalal Patel and Anr
vs State of Gujarat and others 983 4 SCC 553
778F 2
Section 126 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code merely deals with the limits of the site of any village town or city and prescribes the procedure for fixing the limits of such sites
There is nothing in the Bombay Land Revenue Code or the Land Acquisition Act which would suggest that before acquisition can be resorted to for enlarging a village site the Collector or a Survey officer or Revenue Authority must decide upon such enlargement
781E F Chandrabhagabai Udhaorao and others vs Commissioner Nagpur Division Nagpur Ors 1962 Nagpur Law Journal Vol
XLV at p 466 and Sitaram Maroti vs State of Maharashtra 1963 65 Bombay Law Reporter 241 distinguished
The assessment of suitability of the land proposed to be acquired for the concerned public purpose is primarily for the Land Acquisition officer to consider and no good reason has been shown on behalf of the appellant which could warrant interference with his decision
Moreover the appellant had not even given proper particulars of the other lands which according to him were available and were more suitable for acquisition and hence he can make no grievance on the score of proper consideration not having been given to the question of acquiring such lands
782BC D 778 4
The delay in the acquisition has taken place on account of the legal proceedings adopted by the Appellant himself and by reason of the interim orders obtained by him
He cannot take advantage of this delay and claim that the public purpose no longer survives
Moreover the public purpose stated in the Notification is the extension of a village site or goathan of the village Bhairav and there is nothing to show that the public purpose has exhausted itself
In fact on account of increasing population it would be more necessary today that the village site should be extended even then it was at the time when the notification was issued782E F