A Malegaon Magistrate Court has convicted a Muslim man in a case of road accident brawl but instead of imprisonment, it has ordered him to offer Namaz (prayers) five times a day for 21 days and plant two trees.
The local civil court urged that the convict should perform all five daily prayers on time. These five time prayers include the obligatory prayers of Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha.
Magistrate Tejwant Singh Sandhu in the order passed on February 27 noted that provisions of the Probation of Offenders Act granted powers to a magistrate to release a convict after admonition or appropriate warning to ensure he or she does not repeat the offence.
Mere warning not sufficient
The court said in the present case, mere warning would not be sufficient and it is important that the convict remembers his conviction so that he does not repeat it.
“According to me, giving appropriate warning means, to give an understanding that the crime had been committed, the accused has been proven guilty and he remembers the same so that he does not repeat the offence again,” the order said.
The 30-year-old convict, Rauf Khan is an autorickshaw driver. He was booked in a 2010 case for allegedly assaulting a man and hurting him over a road accident brawl.
Convict is irregular in Namaz
The court while convicting him in the case noted that during trial, Khan had said he was not offering regular namaz.
In view of this, the court ordered him to offer namaz five times a day for 21 days starting from February 28, plant two trees in the Sonapura Masjid and Qabristan premises and also take care of the trees.
Khan was booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
The court held Khan guilty under IPC Section 323 and acquitted him of the other charges.
Khan was acquitted, without imprisonment and fine, on the condition that he complied with the order of the magistrate.
Justice Tejwant Singh Sandhu also concluded that these two directions fell within the ambit of Section 3 of the 1958 Act, and hence was an appropriate warning.
With inputs from PTI.
