GANESAN Vs. THE STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IT is seen that the petitioner herein was arrayed as A -1 in C.C. No. 93 of 2008 on the file of the District Munsif -cum -Judicial Magistrate, Pappireddipatty, and on 31.12.2014 he was convicted for the offences under Sections 408 r/w 120B, 467, 471 and 477A IPC and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for the aggregate period of 11 years consecutively, and not concurrently. Aggrieved by the said conviction and sentence, the petitioner has filed Crl.A. No. 3 of 2015 on the file of the Principal Sessions Judge, Dharmapuri, and the sentence of imprisonment was suspended and the petitioner was released on bail. The co -accused in the same crime number, who was similarly convicted and sentenced, filed Crl.A. No. 73 of 2015 before this Court and the same has been admitted and pending as on date. Whileso, the petitioner has come forward with this petition for transferring Crl.A. No. 3 of 2015 from the file of Principal Sessions Court, Dharmapuri, to this Court on the ground that the appeal was wrongly filed before the Sessions Court, instead of filing before this Court.

(2.) HEARD the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner as well as the learned Additional Public Prosecutor.

(3.) IN this case, by virtue of Section 31(3), which has been extracted above, the aggregate sentence imposed upon the petitioner for various offences adds upto 11 years, and therefore the appeal against the judgment of the Magistrate should have been filed before this Court, and not before the Sessions Court, Dharmapuri. In view of the above statutory provisions, this petition is allowed and Crl.A. No. 3 of 2014 pending on the file of the Principal Sessions Judge, Dharmapuri, stands transferred to the file of this Court, to be heard along with Crl.A. No. 73 of 2015, filed by the co -accused R. Kamaraj (A -2).