MADAN BAGDI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Nine persons were convicted by an Assistant Sessions Judge at Birbhum under Section 395 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for three years each. Six of them preferred an appeal before the Sessions Judge of Birbhum. They filed a joint petition of appeal. This appeal was heard by an Additional Sessions Judge. He dismissed the appeal on the preliminary point that a joint petition of appeal by more than one convicted person was not maintainable in law The petitioners were three out of the said six appellants The petitioners have obtained this Rule against the aforesaid order of the Additional Sessions Judge.

(2.) The short question for consideration is if a joint petition of appeal by more than one convicted pennon is maintainable under Section 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The relevant portion of Section 419 is as follows: "Every appeal shall be made in the form of a petition in writing presented by the appellant or his pleader" Does this mean that when several persons are convicted at a joint trial each one must file a separate petition of appeal or more than one such person can join in one petition of appeal? What Section 419 contemplates is that an appeal shall be in the form of a petition in writing It does not say that each appellant must file a separate petition in writing or in other words, the words in Section 419 do not bar more than one convicted person to join in one petition.

(3.) It has been argued that if more than one convicted person join in one petition of appeal. Sections 421 and 431 of the Code would become unworkable Section 421 reads as follows