Answer
1. Reason to believe: (S. 26 of P.P.C’.)
A person is said to have reason to believe a thing if he has sufficient cause to believe that but not otherwise.
Explanation: Sufficient cause connotes that when the circumstances are such that a reasonable man would be led by a cha ii of probable reasoning to the conclusion or inference of the existence of that thing. A person can he supposed to know where there is a direct appeal to his reason. If the circumstances are such hat a reasonable man must have left convinced in his mind of particular fact. It must be presumed that he had reason to belief that fact.
However, the word ‘believe’ is a very much stronger word than ‘suspect’. Mere suspicion is not equivalent to reason to believe, A suspicion, however, may put a person on the alert, and if the reasons are convincing about the existence or non-existence of a fact or thing, it is converted into a belief.
A person can be supposed to know when there is a direct appeal to his senses. A person has reason to believe if he has sufficient cause to believe the thing. The words used are if he has sufficient cause to believe and not ‘if there is sufficient cause to believe’. This shows that mere existence of a sufficient cause is not knowledge. Sufficient cause must exist and he must know of its existence, otherwise he has no ‘reason to believe a thing’.
The phrase reason to believe’ has been used in Ss. 411 to 414 P.P.C.
2. Good Faith: (S. 52 of P.P.C.)
Nothing is said to be in good faith, which is done or believed without due care and attention or an act which is done with due care and caution will be said to be done in good faith.
Illustrations
1. A doctor operates upon a patient by taking all precautionary measures. Patient dies. Held the doctor
has acted upon in good faith. Here absence of good faith means simply carelessness or negligence. In criminal
cases, good faith plays an important role because its presence affords a good defence. But mistake of law is
no defence even if committed in good faith.
2. A driver starts driving the bus without checking its brakes and the bus meets an accident. Held it will be said
that the driver has not performed his duties in good faith.
A person operated on man for internal piles cutting them out with an ordinary knife. The man died from hemorrhage. Here the operation which was a dangerous one was not done in good faith, because the person was admittedly uneducated in matters of surgery, which required ‘due care and attention’, although he might have performed similar operation on previous occasion.
The words due care and attention’ clearly indicate that good faith in the sense of simple belief is not sufficient. The belief must rest on reasonable ground and not on any absurd ground. The phrase implies a genuine effort to reach the truth and not ready acceptance of ill-matured belief.
3. Voluntarily: (S. 39 of P.P.C.)
A person is said to cause an effect voluntarily when he causes it by means:
(a) whereby he intended to cause it, or
(b) which at the time of employing those means he knew or had reason to believe, to be likely to cause it.
This section defines the word ‘voluntarily’ by applying to it the test of intention which may be either express or implied. If the fact is a probable consequence of the means used by him, he causes it ‘voluntarily’, whether he really meant to cause it or not. In other words, cases in which, he causes it knowingly or having reason to believe that he is likely to cause it.
Illustration
1. D sets fire by night to an inhabited house in a large town, for the purpose of facilitating robbery and thus causes the death of a person. Here, D may not have intended to cause death, and may even by sorry that death has been caused by his act, yet, if he knew that he was likely to use death, he has caused death ‘voluntarily’.
2. B puts petrol in the letterbox of K, in order to fear him. Petrol flows to bed-room and due to gas heater the room catches fire and kills two persons. Held B has voluntarily committed the offence of murder.
Harbouring : (S. 52-A of P.P.C.)
Harbouring means and includes to:
(a) supply a person with shelter, food, drink, money, clothes, arms, ammunition, or means or conveyance, or
(b) assisting him by any means whatsoever, to evade his arrest or apprehension. Husband and wife are, however, accepted to be included in the definition.
Example:
1. A is a deserter from army and absconder under law. B provided him shelter. Held B has committed the offence of Harbouring.
2. A is a murder and wanted under law. Z supplies him his car to escape. Held Z has committed the offence of Harbouring.
3. K is an accused and involved in many criminal cases. Psupplies him food, house, and clothes to avoid K’s arrest.
Held, P has committed the offence of Harbouring.
Here, a parson is said to harbour another person, who has committed an offence or who is seeking to evade arrest when he supplies that other with shelter food etc. or, assist that other by any means.
Exception:
The case in which the harbour is given by wife or husband of the person harbour under Ss. 130 and 157, come within the purview of this section.
5. Public Servant:
According to S. 21 of the P.P.C., words ‘public servant’ denote a person falling under any of descriptions hereinafter following, namely
(i) Omitted, by the Federal Laws (Revision Declaration) Ordinance XXV II of 1981,
(ii) Every Commissioned Officer in the Military, Naval or Air Forces of Pakistan while serving under the Federal Government or any Provincial Government.
(iii) Every Judge;
(iv) Every Officer of a Court of Justice whose duty it is; as such officer, to investigate or report on any matter of law or fact, or to make, authenticate or keep any document or to take charge or dispose of any property or execute any judicial process or to administer any oath, or the interpret or to preserve order the Court; and every person specially authorized by a Court of Justice to perform any of such duties;
(v) Every juryman, assessor or member of a pañchayat assisting a Court of Justice or public servant;
(vi) Every arbitrator or other person to whom any cause or matter has been referred for decision or report by any Court of Justice or by any other competent public authority;
(vii) Every person who holds any office by virtue of which he is empowered to place or keep any person in confinement;
(viii) Every officer of the Government whose duty it is, as such officer, to prevent offences, to give information of offences to bring offenders to justice, or to protect the public health, safety or convenience;
(ix) Every officer whose duty it is, as such officer, to take, receive, keep or expend any property on behalf of the Government, or to make any survey, assessment or contract on behalf of the Government, or to execute any revenue process or to investigate or to report or any matter affecting the pecuniary interest of the Government or to make, authenticate or keep any document relating to the pecuniary interests of the Government or to prevent the infraction of any law for the protection of the pecuniary interests of the Government, and every officer in, the service or pay of the Government or remunerated by fees or commission for the performance of any public duty;
(x) Every officer whose duty it is, as such officer, to take receive, keep or expend any property, to make any survey or assessment or to levy any rate or tax for any secular common purpose of any village, town or district, or to make authenticate or keep any document for the, ascertaining of rights of the people of any village, town or district;
(xi) Every person who holds any office by virtue of which he is empowered to prepare, publish, maintain or revise an electoral roll or to conduct an election or part of an election.
The general test to determine whether a person is an officer within the meaning of S. 21 (9), PPC is to see whether he is in the service or pay of the Government and whether he is entrusted with performance of any duty. (PLD 1957 SC (hid.) 190).
Hence, Chief Minister of a Province and a Minister, Peons in Government Offices, Cotton Inspector, Railway employees. Nikah Registrar under the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, Bank officers are held to be public servants.
Government Servant and Public Servant:
Every public servant within the meaning of this section s not ipso facto, a Government servant therefore merely because Secretary Board of Technical Education is a public servant under S. 28 of ordinance, 39 of 1962, he cannot be held to be a Government Servant.
Public Servant:
Any person, whether receiving pay or not, who chooses to take upon himself duties and responsibilities belonging to the position of a public servant and performs those duties, and accepts those responsibilities and is recognized as filing the position of a public servant, must be regarded as one, and it does not lie in his mouth to pay subsequently that, not with standing his performance of public duties and the recognition by others of such performances, he is not a ‘public servant”
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