Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

1. The appellants have been convicted of wrongful restraint for having caused certain pariahs to stand in the public street in the vicinity of a temple with the object of preventing the complainant from conducting a procession from the temple through the street. It is found that the complainant, deterred by fear of the pollution which he would have suffered had he passed near the pariahs, did not conduct the procession, and that the accused maliciously caused the pariahs to take up their position in the street with the sole object of deterring1 the complainant from going where he had a right to go.

3. It was not the presence of the pariahs but the complainant's own distinction to go near them which prevented him from going where he would: it was his own choice which kept him from leaving the temple as Mr. Ruppusami Aiyar put it, it was with his own consent that he remained there and there was no fear of injury within the meaning of the Penal Code which would prevent that consent from being a free consent.

4. If it were otherwise, it would follow that a person in the position of the complainant would be justified in complaining of wrongful restraint against any pariah who being law, fully in the public street on his own business refused to move when directed to remove him self to a distance, knowing that if he remained the complainant would be deterred by fear of pollution from passing near him.