PANDURANG KALU PATIL Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A Division Bench of the High Court of Bombay has ventured to disagree with a ratio which has become locus classicus and well stood the long period of half-a-century. That ratio is the one laid down in the celebrated decision in Pulikuri Kottaya and others vs. Emperor, (AIR 1947 PC 67). In that exercise the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court had unwittingly overlooked another legal guideline delineate by a Full Bench of the Bombay High Court itself in State of Bombay vs. Chhaganlal Gangaram Lavar, (AIR 1955 Bom 1) wherein Chief Justice Chagla speaking for the Full Bench had said thus :-

(2.) Quite possibly the attention of the learned Judges of the Division Bench of the High Court would not have been drawn to the observations made by Chagla, C. J. of the Full Bench of the Bombay High Court in the aforecited decision, for, otherwise we are sure that learned Judges of the Division Bench would not have erred into the matter of judicial discipline.

(3.) While delivering judgment in two connected criminal appeals relating to the murder of one Ramdas, the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (D.K. Trivedi and D. G. Deshpande, JJ.) proceeded to consider the legal proposition propounded in Pulikuri Kottaya and held thus :-