Judgement

S. K. DAS. J. :- This is an appeal by special leave from an order of summary dismissal passed by the High Court of Patna on 20th July 1954, on an application under Arts. 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India. The relevant facts are these. One Uma Shankar Prasad instituted a case against eight persons, including the three appellants before us, Baldeo Singh, Ramdeo Singh and Sheodhar Singh, on the allegation that they had forcibly cut and removed urad and kodo crops from his field in village Darwan on 1st October 1953 at about 10 a. m. Uma Shankar said that he objected, but was threatened with assault. The case was instituted before the Gram Cutcherry of Bankat in the district of Champaran, constituted under the provisions of the Bihar Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 (Bihar Act 7 of 1948), hereinafter referred to as the Act. Altogether four witnesses were examined in the case, two on behalf of the prosecution and for the accused persons. The defence of some of the accused persons was that the land on which the crops stood belonged to one Yogi Sahni, who had sold it to Sunder Singh, accused, on 25th September 1953. On 28th December 1953, a bench of the Gram Cutcherry acquitted