PARUIT VS THE QUEEN
1968 MR 37
Rivalland C.J. and Latour Adrien J.
This is an appeal against the judgment of the district magistrate of Grand
Port who found the appellant guilty of the offence of having obstructed a police officer in the discharge of his duties and sentenced him to pay a fine of Rs 75 with Rs 25 as costs.
The police officer concerned-a Chief Inspector-deponed to the effect that on the 15th August, 1967, in company of other police officers, he was patrolling
Labourdonnais Street, Mahebourg, when he saw a crowd of about 100 persons assembled in the street. They were shouting and had obstructed the road completely, disrupting the traffic. He alighted and spoke to the appellant and other persons and asked them to clear the road; at a certain time he took a man who was standing in the middle of the road and who appeared to be under the influence of drink by the hand, in order to take him away to the side of the road. The appellant came towards him and grasped the man by his shoulder saying:
:envoye li faire foute acote aller" with the result that the man stopped and other persons again gathered on the spot. The Chief Inspector warned the appellant that he was obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, there followed a discussion and finally the appellant was taken away by some persons. In cross-examination the evidence of the police officer was strongly challenged and there was a suggestion that he had partaken of drinks on that day prior to the occurrence. No other police officer was called to corroborate the evidence of the Chief Inspector although obviously that evidence was procurable and in fact there was one police officer on the list of the prosecution witnesses who was not called.
The evidence of the defence consisted of the testimony of the appellant himself and of Mr. Vengrasamy Rengasamy, an attorney's clerk of Souillac who gave evidence which bore on three material points. The first was that while the