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3. At about midday on 24-3-1947, a sergeant J. G. Lacey, was sent by the sergeant-major to the armoury to obtain ropes & handcuffs with which to bring under-trial prisoners from the jail to the Ct. of Session. Sargeant Lacey was permitted to open the armoury & take out the handcuffs & ropes, but, when he was about to take them away, he was stopped & was also compelled to hand over the key. On the evening of 25-3-1947, a public meeting was held in the Whitty Park at Gaya, which was addressed by Ramanand Tewari & by certain constables, among them one of these applts. While this meeting was in progress, certain events to which I will refer presently, wore taking place in Patna & in consequence of them, the action which the Provincial Govt. decided to take against Mr. Chaudhuri had no effect, & it had eventually to call in troops in order to recover possession of the armoury.

7. Another ex-constable, Indradeo Singh, who has been described as a lieutenant of Ramanand Tewari, left Patna immediately after this incident for Monghyr. Indradeo Singh appears, to have assumed that, as British troops had been called in on the previous night, it must have been British troops who were responsible for opening fire on the occupants of the truck driven by Barhamdeo Singh in Kadamkuan. His resentment at the employment of British troops & at what, he supposed, quite wrongly it would seem had been their behaviour, had, I am inclined to think a good deal to do with what took place at Monghyr & also possibly at Gaya, Indradeo Singh reached Jamalpur at about 5 P.M. & went to the police lines & called on the havildars & constables there to go on strike, Sergeant Ashtan, on being told of what was going on in the lines, as once went to the armoury & ordered Indradeo Singh out of it. Indradeo Singh called on him to hand over the key of the armoury, & when sergeant Ashtan declined to do so he was assaulted one constable striking him a blow on the head with an iron bar. Indradeo Singh then took possession of the key & opened the armoury & issued rifles & ammunition to the havildars & constables Prior to this Indradeo Singh had been in communication by telephone with the police lines at Monghyr. At about 7 P. M. the alarm was Bounded there & the havildars & constables decided to go on strike. At about 11-30 P.M. the armoury was broken open & rifles & ammunition were issued to those constables who were not already in possession of them.

21. A great deal was made at the trials over the assaults committed on Mr. Varma & the other police officers at Patna, over the skirmish between the Gurkha Military police & some of the occupants of the motor truck in which Ramanand Tewari came to Patna & over the assaults, on Sergeant Lacey at Gaya & on Sergeant Ashton at Jamalpur. The assault on the-police officers at Patna & the firing on the Gurkha Military police were not acts done in the pursuance of the conspiracy & the large body of evidence which was adduced as to these incidents was wholly irrelevant. The assaults on Sergeant Lacey & Sargeant Ashton were, no doubt, acts done in pursuance of the conspiracy but the criminal force there used was clearly not intended directly to overawe the Provincial Govt. It was used in order to obtain the keys of the armouries. As to the firing at Gaya & Monghyr, this cannot bring the conspiracy under the latter part of Section 121A. If, in consequence of these incidents, the conspirators are liable under Section 121 A, they can only be liable under the earlier & not under the latter part of the section.

25. In criminal Appeal No. 156 of 1949, there is evidence that a small number of the applts., particularly, Dinanath Singh, Mohammad Khalil and Ramnaresh Misra, took a more prominent part in the occurrence than did the others. Unfortunately, however, there is no evidence to show that they or any of the other applta. except Indradeo Singh incited other constables to mutiny. The result is that the appeals of all the applts. except Indradeo Singh must be allowed, the convictions and sentences imposed on them must be set aside and they must be released and set at liberty forthwith. Indradeo Singh was convicted under Section 395, Penal Code. There is no doubt that he was not merely responsible for the constables at Jamalpur and Monghyr taking part in the mutiny but that he was also responsible for depriving Sergeant Ashton of the key of the armoury. Although it was not he who struck Sergeant Ashton on the head with an iron bar but another constable, this applt. and that constable were acting in concert with one another. The offence committed was not, however, the offence of dacoity but the offence of robbery, and the conviction of this applt. under Section 395, Penal Code will be altered to one under Section 392, Penal Code. His conviction under Section 3, Police (Incitement to Disaffection) Act, 1922, will be maintained. On the former charge he will be sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years and on the latter to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months, the two sentences to run concurrently.