STATE TAMIL NADU Vs. VEERAPPAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals, which have been preferred by the State represented by the learned. Public Prosecutor against the orders of the learned Judicial Second Class Magistrate of Namakkal acquitting the respondent-accused in each case of an offence punishable under Section 4(1)(b) of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act are before us, inasmuch as on a reference by one of us, before whom the appeals originally came up for hearing, the matter has been placed before this Full Bench since the matter involved a question of law of public importance, in regard to which question of law there have been divergent views of various High Courts.

(2.) Of the two questions which have been referred to this Full Bench, the first one, namely, whether under Section 255(1) Cr. P. C., a Magistrate can acquit the accused if the prosecution fails to apply for the issue of summons to any witness and does not produce the witness for several hearings and does not serve summons on the witnesses despite having been granted sufficient opportunity to serve the summons or to produce the witnesses, is the one that directly arises for determination in these appeals. The second question which arises for determination by us incidentally is whether a Magistrate can acquit the accused under Section 248(1) Cr. P. C., if the prosecution does not apply for the issue of summons to any of the witnesses and does not produce the witness for several hearings and does not serve the summons on the witnesses despite having been granted sufficient opportunities to serve the summons on the witnesses or to produce the witnesses.

(3.) In all these appeals, the learned Magistrate acquitted the accused under Section 255(1) Cr. P. C., on the ground that even though the cases had been posted for hearing on various dates and summons had been issued to the witnesses for all the hearings, the witnesses were not produced on any of the hearing dates and in spite of a notice issued that the case would be disposed of without examining the witnesses if they are not produced the prosecution did not choose to let in any evidence and as such the Magistrate found that the prosecution had no evidence to let in.