HAMID Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On a report made by this office this appeal was returned by a learned Judge of this Court for presentation to the Sessions Judge. When it was presented before him he also returned it for presentation to the High Court. The appeal is still within time, but even if it had been out of time there would have been good cause for extension of the period of limitation.

(2.) The appeal is from an order of an Assistant Sessions Judge convicting the accused under Secs.366 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code at one trial and sentencing him to three years rigorous imprisonment, the sentences to run consecutively.

(3.) The sentence for each offence is of less than four years but the aggregate of the two exceeds that term. If the two sentences had to run concurrently there would be no doubt that under Section 408, Criminal Procedure Code, the appeal would lie to the Sessions Judge, but as they have to run consecutively the sentence passed by the Assistant Sessions Judge is really for a period exceeding four years and an appeal would, therefore, lie to the High Court under Section 408, Sub-section (b). The point is made still clearer by the provisions of Section 35, Sub-section (3), Criminal Procedure Code, laying down that the aggregate of consecutive sentences passed for several offences at one trial is to be deemed a single sentence. There is, therefore, no doubt that an appeal lies to the High Court.