IN RE: ATHIPALAYAN AND ORS. Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS batch of revision cases raises a point of considerable importance in the day -to -day administration of justice. It relates to announcing sentence before judgment which is the final decision of the Court intimated to the parties and the world at large by formal pronouncement of delivery in open Court by the trial Judge and signing and dating it simultaneously and thereby terminating the criminal proceedings finally (Halsbury 2nd Edition, Vol. 9), pages 260 -264: Emperor v. Maheswara Kondayya, (1908) 31 Mad. 543, Madho Singh v. Emperor, (1940) 41 Cri.L.J. 725, Kuppuswami Rao v. The King , Hori Ram Singh v. Emperor , Surya Rao v. Sathiraju : AIR1948Mad510 , Surendra v. Stale of Uttar Pradesh : 1954CriLJ475 , Basanta Kumar Pal v. Kamini Mohan Pal, A.I.R. 1957 Tri 55.

(2.) ONE Sri K. Ramanujam, the Sub -Magistrate of Rasipuram, has convicted the accused in C.C. Nos. 2101, 2113, 2236 and 2257 of 1959 under Section 4(1)(j) of the Madras Prohibition Act. In all these cases the accused has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for two months and to pay a fine of Rs. 5. It has been proved beyond doubt and the Magistrate himself admits it, that in none of these cases he wrote judgments and pronounced them and signed and dated them in open Court as required by Sections 366 and 367 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. We are not concerned with the ad misericordiam explanation and that is a matter for the Administrative Department of the High Court to settle. We are only concerned with this reference made by the District Magistrate that during his surprise inspection of the Rasipuram Court he found that judgments had not been written at all and that the Magistrate had merely noted in the docket sheet the conviction and sentence. Therefore, the District Magistrate has made this reference requesting the High Court to set aside the convictions and sentences.

(3.) IT is unnecessary to further buttress by citations the elementary point of the glorious Anglo -Saxon Criminal Jurisprudence that we administer that firstly no one can be tried or sentenced in absentia (except in petty cases and when represented by a pleader) secondly, the judgment must be pronounced in open Court, signed and dated; and thereby that if these formalities are not strictly complied with, the conviction and sentence cannot be sustained and they become illegal and there is no question of any irregularity being cured because it is almost impossible that no prejudice thereby will be caused to the accused. This irregularity will amount to an illegality vitiating the conviction and sentence because, as I have just stated it is one of the glorious principles of our criminal jurisprudence that we do not try or sentence people in absentia and we do not also convict and sentence people without judgments being pronounced in open Court and signed and dated then and there. It may be different in the continental system of criminal jurisprudence.