CHIRANJI LAL Vs. RAM LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition for revision arises out of an order passed by the Additional Sessions Judge of Meerut. That Judge was asked to grant sanction for the prosecution of eight men. These eight men were witnesses for the defence in the case of King-Emperor v. Behary, decided by that particular Judge himself. After he had decided the case, he took action under Section 476 of the Criminal Procedure Code and directed the prosecution of such witnesses as he thought it desirable to prosecute. He refused to give sanction for the prosecution of the eight persons concerned in this petition, on the grounds that if they did perjure themselves, they played a very secondary part and the chief witnesses have been ordered to be prosecuted. An offence under Section 193 of the Indian Penal Code is an offence against public justice. The person best qualified to say whether a prosecution should or should not be instituted is the learned Judge before whom the evidence was given and who had considered all the facts of the case. It may well be, and unfortunately too often is, the case at present in this country that false evidence is given in Courts without compunction and without remembrance on the part of the persons concerned that they are committing an offence of a serious nature. I do not, however, consider that the best or most effective way of checking this kind of offence is by a wholesale prosecution of all persons who may be considered to have given false evidence. The interests of justice and of the public are best secured by the prosecution of ring-leaders and by deterrent sentences in their case when they are found to have intentionally given false evidence. In a case like the present where the judgment shows that the learned Sessions Judge was fully cognizant of the facts of the case and had carefully considered the ends of justice, I am not prepared to interfere with his discretion in the matter I, therefore, reject the application.