EMPEROR Vs. RAMA NANA HAGAVNE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused was convicted by the First Class Magistrate, Karad Division, of an offence under Section 196, Indian Penal Code. He was originally charged with having committed an assault on one Dhondi on the 1919. His defence was an alibi and in support of that defence he produced a cattle pound receipt and called the Patil of Chindholi to prove that he was at that village on the day of the alleged assault. The defence was not believed and the accused was convicted. He was then sent for trial together with the Patil under the provisions of h. 76 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Magistrate found that the Patil fabricated evidence in order to save the present applicant and that they both corruptly used that evidence with full knowledge of its false character.

(2.) An appeal to the Sessions Judge was dismissed.

(3.) We have been asked to exercise our revisional jurisdiction on the ground that it has been held by this Court in Imperator V/s. Bhausing Jalamsing (1909) Criminal Revisional No. 26 of 1909 decided by Scott, C.J. and Chandavarkar J. on 31 March, 1909(Unrep) that an accused person who uses false evidence which he knows to be false for the purpose of his defence cannot be said to use it corruptly within the meaning of that word in Section 196, Indian Penal Code, unless it can be proved that the witness called to give the false evidence had a corrupt motive. In that case the applicant who had been charged with having committed an assault was found to have used false evidence knowing it was false, to support an alibi which failed, and was convicted under Section 196, Indian Penal Code. It seems to have been argued in an appeal against the sentence that it was necessary to prove that the person charged under Section 196 had illicit inducement, but the Sessions Judge was of opinion that the word corruptly was a mere reproduction of the phraseology of the Law of England. On an application for revision to the High Court it was urged that Section 196 of the Indian Penal Code did not apply to the case of an accused person who used false evidence in his own defence. The argument was supported by a citation from a Report of Lord Macaulay upon the Indian Penal Code addressed to Lord Auckland as Governor General. The Court, after reciting the portion of the report relied upon, observed: Our duty is to see whether the facts of this case come within the terms of Section 196 of the (Indian) Indian Penal Code irrespective of the intentions of Lord Macaulay as appearing from his report.