QUEEN Vs. KOLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This was a case Bent for by this Court under section 403 on a revision of the abstract statement. The prisoner was convicted by a jury at a trial held before the Judicial Commissioner of Assam, of the offence of giving false evidence either on the 12th of May by stating before the Deputy Commissioner of Nowgong on solemn affirmation Both houses had evidently been set fire to by means of lighted rags which had been thrust into the thatch; we found these rags in the thatch of both houses;" or by stating on the 22nd of June before the Court of Sessions--"After the fires were put out we found on the ground amongst the fallen straw, some burnt rags; these rags were found on the ground at both houses; it was not daylight ah "the time, and one Bhuban Borah having brought a light we made "search and found the rags; for the statements being opposed to each other it was considered that he knew one of them to be false. The only evidence of the falseness of either story is the other deposition. In that before the Judicial Commissioner the prisoner had said : We threw water on the roof, and pulled out the straw, and so put out both fires." No witness would be safe if convictions on supposed contradictions such as those now before us, could be allowed to stand. To describe the finding of the burnt rags," amongst the straw which had formed the thatch which had been just pulled off from the roof of a burning house, as finding the rags in the thatch is hardly even an inaccurate expression.

(2.) It is clear that neither the Judge nor the Jury had any right to assume that if the prisoner had been asked to explain before the Assistant Commissioner the time and manner of his finding the burnt rags in the thatch he would not have given an explanation which would have been entirely consistent with his statement before the Judge. In our opinion there is do evidence to support the conviction which must be quashed, and the prisoners released.