RAGHUNATH PRASAD Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A complaint filed against the applicant under Sections 497 and 493 of the Indian Penal Code was pending in the court of the Magistrate and a part of the evidence had been recorded when the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Act (Act XXVI of 1955) came into force. By that Act Section 350 of the old Code was amended in certain respects. Under the unamended section the accused had a right to claim a de novo trial in the circumstances mentioned in the section. This right of the accused has been taken away by the amendment to Section 350 made by the Amending Act. The applicant claimed a de novo trial as according to him in view of Section 116 of the Amending Act his case was governed by the unamended section. This contention was rejected by the Magistrate. He took the view that the amended section would apply and the applicant could not, on that account, claim a de novo trial. The applicant went up in revision to the Sessions Judge but that application was rejected. He then preferred an application in revision to this Court and it came up for disposal be-fore my brother Sahai J. He thought that the question was of some importance and an authoritative pronouncement in respect of it was needed. He, therefore, referred the case to a Division Bench. The case has, therefore, come up before us.

(2.) The short question that arises in the case, therefore is whether in this case, which was not only pending when the Amending Act came into force but in which some evidence had also been recorded, the provisions of the amended Section 350 of the Code will apply or whether the case will be governed by the unamended section as it stood in the original code.

(3.) We have been delivered of the necessity of dealing with the matter elaborately because a recent decision of the Supreme Court in 1957, Anant Gopal Sheorey v. The State of Bombay, Cri. Appeal No. 178 of 1957, D/-22-5-1958: (AIR 1958 SC 915), appears to cover the case entirely and in view of that decision it must be held that the application of the applicant was rightly rejected by the two courts below.