GURUSWAMI THEVAR Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Ses. J. of Ramanathapuram has convicted the applt. of the murder of his concubine & sentenced him to death.

(2.) Mr. Rajaraman, the learned advocate for the applt. has raised this preliminary objection. The evidence in the case was heard by Mr. H. A. Ayyar who also appears to have actually written the judgment in the case. He handed over charge of his office as Ses. J. on the forenoon of 14-12-1950 & the judgment which he wrote was pronounced by his successor in office, Mr. Sankaran Nambiar. This procedure, Mr. Rajaraman contends, is illegal because what Mr. H. A. Ayyar wrote cannot be called a judgment, in law it can only be regarded as an expression of his opinion on the merits of the case. After he ceased to be the Ses. J. of Ramanathapuram he became functus officio in the matter & he had no power to write a judgment in the case. When thereupon Mr. Sankaran Nambiar purported to pronounce judgment he was only reading out the opinion of his predecessor & was not pronouncing the judgment in the case. In a Sessions case, he contended, the judgment must be written & pronounced by the very same officer who heard the evidence in the case. In support of this objection he refd. us to the decision in Allikhan In re, I. L. R. 1947 Mad. 365. In that case what happened was this. The evidence was heard by Mr. Nainar when he was Ses. J., Chittoor. After he handed over charge to Mr. A. S. P. Ayyar, he wrote what purported to be the judgment of the case & it was pronounced by Mr. A. S. P. Ayyar. It was held by a bench of this Ct. that the judgment so pronounced was really a nullity. The learned Judges say :

(3.) The earliest of these is reported in Shankara Pillai In re, 18 M. L. J. 197. In that case the judgment was written by the Mag. who heard the evidence. But he left the station before it was delivered. His successor in office read out his predecessor's judgment & signed & dated it in open Ct. A Bench of this Ct. held that the course was not illegal being of the view that Under Section 367, Cr. P. C. it ia not necessary that the presiding officer of the Ct. who wrote the judgment should be the same person as the presiding officer who is required to date, sign & pronounce it We may point out that this case was consd. by the learned Judges of the Calcutta H. C. in Jogesh Chandra Roy v. Surendra Mohan Roy Chowdhury, 35 C. W. N. 838, & they distinctly stated that they were not prepared to follow it.