NATHA SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from two judgments and orders of the High Court of Judicature at Lahore dated June 7, 1945, which dismissed the appeals of the appellants, and confirmed the sentences of death passed on. them, by the judgment, and order, dated February 9, 1945, of the Sessions Judge, Amritsar. Their Lordships have already announced that they will humbly advise His Majesty that the appeal be dismissed, and they now give their reasons.

(2.) THE ground upon which special leave to appeal was granted was the allegation that evidence that the appellants had committed a murder other than that with which they were charged was wrongly admitted, and this has been the principal point argued on their behalf.

(3.) AT the trial of the appellants for the murder of Karnail Singh the approver gave evidence that he and the appellants had murdered Bhan Singh a few days before the murder of Karnail Singh, and that they proposed to conceal the murder of Bhan Singh by causing injuries to Karnail Singh and getting themselves arrested for so doing. That is to say, the evidence of the approver was that the motive, or at any rate one of the motives, for the injuries caused to Karnail Singh was a desire to conceal the murder of Bhan Singh. The suggested motive is no doubt a singular one, but however improbable an alleged motive may, be the prosecution is entitled to call evidence in support of it, and none the less so because such evidence may suggest that the accused has committed some crime other than that with which he is charged (see ill. (a) to Section 8 of the Indian Evidence Act ). If evidence that the appellants had murdered Bhan Singh had been given with a view to showing that they were persons likely to have committed the murder of Karnail Singh, the evidence would have been inadmissible; but it was admissible to establish motive for the murder with which they were charged. It would have been better if the learned Sessions Judge had pointed out to the assessors the limited purpose for which evidence of the murder of Bhan Singh could be used, but in trials with the aid of assessors the decision rests with the Judge, and not with the assessors, and when the Sessions Judge convicted the appellants of the murder of Karnail Singh, he knew that they had been, or were about to be, acquitted of the murder of Bhan Singh, and that the evidence as to the latter murder was of no consequence. In their Lordships' opinion the evidence objected to was properly admitted.