The punishment under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code depends on the offence which the accused knew or believed to have been committed, not on the offence which was actually committed.

Judgment

SARKAR, J. :- There are three appellants in this case. They had been prosecuted for various offences under the Indian Penal Code and acquitted by the trial Court. On appeal, the High Court of Punjab convicted the appellant Roshan Lal, a Sub-Inspector of Police, under Ss. 330 and 348 of the Code. The High Court also convicted all the three appellants under S. 201 of the Code. This appeal is against the judgment of the High Court with special leave. That leave was however confined only to the question as to the legality of the term of imprisonment imposed under S. 201.

2. The High Court found that Roshan Lal, with a police party which included the two other appellants one of whom was an Assistant Sub-Inspector and the other a police constable, arrested a man called Raja Ram on a public street on suspicion that he was an opium smuggler, took him to his house and when no contraband opium was found there, the appellant Roshan Lal got very angry and hit him on the head with his baton which injured his eye. In respect of this injury the appellant Roshan Lal was convicted on one count under. S. 330 of the Code. After this beating Raja Ram was taken by the police party to the police station and kept confined in a room there for the night and was there beaten by Roshan Lal assisted by some policemen. It was, however, not found that the other two appellants had taken any part in administering this beating to Raja Ram. In respect of this beating the appellant Roshan Lal was convicted by the High Court on a second count under S. 330 read with S. 34 of the Code and also under S. 348 for wrongful confinement of Raja Ram with a view to extort a confession. Next morning Raja Ram was found dead in the room in a pool of blood. The three appellants thereafter carried his dead body to a jungle, burnt it up and collected the bones and ground them in a pestle and mortar and threw the remnants in a canal. In respect of the disposal of the body and thereby destroying the evidence of the offences committed upon Raja Ram the appellants were convicted under S. 201 of the Code. Each of the appellants was sentenced for the offence under S.201 to rigorous imprisonment for three years.

3. The only question in this appeal is whether the appellants could have been awarded a sentence of imprisonment for three years under S. 201. That section is in these terms :

Section 201:- Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed, causes any evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear, with the intention of screening the offender from legal punishment, or with that intention gives any information respecting the offence which he knows or believes to be false,

shall, if the offence which he knows or believes to have been committed is punishable with death, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine;

and if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment which may extend to ten years, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and shall also be liable to fine;

and if the offence is punishable with imprisonment for any term not extending to ten years, shall be punished with imprisonment of the description provided for the offence, for a term which may extend to one-fourth part of the longest term of the imprisonment provided for the offence, or with fine, or with both.

The appellants contended that the sentence imposed was not justified by the section, for the offences found to have been committed were under Ss. 330 and 348 and, therefore, the fourth paragraph of the section applied and under it the sentence could not exceed one fourth of the longest term of imprisonment for the offence under Ss. 330 and 348. It was said that on this basis, the longest term of imprisonment that could be imposed in the present case would be one year and nine months and not thre