‘Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.’
– Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872).
In present case, Appellants cleverly concocted a story of Shama escaping from their custody and created a record to buttress it. Not content therewith, Appellants also cooked up what is clearly a fabricated saga of Shama surfacing in Raipur and being convicted by a Railway Court there, on 07.01.1996, for travelling without a ticket. Even if it is assumed for a second, Shama’s escape is true, it would require another huge leap of faith to believe, Shama, a fugitive from law, would have willfully refused to pay Rs. 50/- while caught travelling ticketless between Gondia and Raipur and would have preferred to go before a Railway Court to suffer and document a conviction whereby he had to pay Rs. 200/- as fine. This convenient story was apparently devised for purpose of creating a record of Shama being alive…
Appellants have cunningly concocted and falsified records to escape their ‘just desserts‘. I would maintain convictions and sentences confirmed by High Court.
– Hon’ble Justice Sanjay Kumar, Manik v. State of Maharashtra, [Criminal Appeal Nos. 1614-1618].
