QUEEN Vs. NOMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is one of four cases sent for by myself, and Mr. Justice E. Jackson, under section 403 on a review of the abstract statement of cases tried before the Court of Session by the Officiating Judicial Commissioner. They are all convictions for giving false evidence on alternative charges based on supposed contradictions. In two cases the prisoners have been already released, there being in our opinion no ground for saying that there was any real contradiction between the two depositions.

(2.) In the present case the prisoner has been tried and convicted by the verdict of a Jury of giving false evidence, either before the Assistant Commissioner of Nowgong in a preliminary enquiry or in the Court of Session before the Officiating Judicial Commissioner, stating on solemn affirmation that just before we saw a light outside and went out to see what it was, we then saw the complainant's brother's house was on tire, and by the light of that tire we saw a man named Tahiram, putting his hand into the roof of Shiva's house which is close to complainant's; when I saw accused putting his hand into the roof of Shiva's house, I saw there was something in his hand which was smoking : the fire broke out in Shiva's house almost immediately afterwards," or as specified in the second head of charge, namely, that he, on or about the 22nd June, 1869, intentionally gave false evidence at Nowgong before the Court of Session in a stage of a judicial proceeding at the trial of a case, by stating on solemn affirmation, that "when I first came out and saw the fire, through the light of the flame I saw the accused at the dung shed," and that the said statements being opposed to each other be knew one of them to be false. The prisoner was sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment.

(3.) The evidence against the prisoner consisted solely of the two depositions which are supposed to be contradictory.