K P CHOYI Vs. KOCHARAKKAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A short but interesting question devoid of many authorities arises for consideration in this case. The petitioner is the plaintiff and the respondents the defendants in a suit. After the witnesses on the side of the petitioner were examined and after one of the respondents was also examined, the petitioner applied to the court to call as a witness a police officer who recorded a statement from one of the respondents in an earlier criminal case under S.161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and also to mark the said statement for the purpose of cross examining the said respondent under S.145 of the Evidence Act. This prayer was refused by the Munsiff, and hence the civil revision petition.

(2.) The Munsiff has given two reasons in his order for rejecting the prayer. The first is that the police officer who recorded the statement under S.161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had no power to administer oath; and the second reason is that the police officer need not have taken down the statement in its entirety, so that the statement need not have been a full statement. In other words, the reasoning is that the statement contemplated by S.161 of the Code is not a statement on oath, and it might also be only a summary of what was stated.

(3.) As we have already stated, the question appears to be devoid of authorities excepting one decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court by Jagan Mohan Reddi J. in Malakala Surya Rao v. Gundapuneedi Janakamma (AIR 1964 Andhra Pradesh 198). In an almost similar case the learned Judge held that the statement recorded by a police officer under S.161 of the Code might be used in a civil proceeding under S.145 of the Evidence Act to contradict the person in his cross examination.