QUEEN Vs. BISHONATH PAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The prisoner has been convicted of dacoity by the verdict of a Jury and sentenced to transportation for life. There appears to have been a very serious irregularity in the mode of conducting the trial. The depositions of witnesses taken on the trial (in July 1867) of other persons charged with having been engaged in the same dacoity are put up with the record. The witnesses appear to have been re-sworn, and each in turn says in effect "I gave evidence before in this Court, and that evidence is true." Without going into the details of the dacoity which must have been taken by the Judge and the Jury entirely from the former depositions each witness in turn merely adds a few particular facts and details to show the connection of the prisoner with the dacoity. Even while making these statements the witnesses refer to their former depositions; as for instance thus "It is true that I recognized Bishonath Pal during the dacoity, &c. It is true that I saw the prisoner Bishonath strike two or three blows at Hira Lal."

(2.) The Judge's record does not clearly show in what order the evidence was laid before the Jury. But I am led to infer that the Judge probably in the first instance allowed the deposition on the former trial to be read in the presence of the Jury and then proceeded to question the witness. However that may be, the course of proceeding was most irregular. Under section 31 of Act II of 1855 the depositions containing the statements of a witness as to the commission of the dacoity taken on the trial in July 1867 would have been admissible, in order to corroborate his testimony given on the trial of the prisoner Bishonath.

(3.) The evidence of the witness whose testimony it was proposed to corroborate should have been first taken, and after such witness had finished his evidence and not before, the former deposition might have been put in; not to add to this testimony, but simply to corroborate it, by showing that the statements made by him while the facts were still fresh in his memory, correspond with those made by him in the Court of Sessions in the present case. In the present case at the time when each deposition was put in, the evidence of the witness not having been given in the Court of Session, there was nothing on the record which made it admissible. There was nothing which was corroborated by it.