ATIAR RAI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This was a Rule calling upon the District Magistrate of Shahabad to show cause why the conviction of the petitioners should not be set aside on the ground that the lower Court inspected the place where the offence is said to have been committed and did not record a note of what he saw.

(2.) Now, what happened in this case was this. The defence urged that the sides of the kote or mound on which the assault took place were unscaleable, and the space was not sufficient to hold so many persons. This being a point on which the Magistrate says he could satisfy himself, he visited the place on the 23rd of July, and found, as he puts it, that his trouble for the defence had been wasted; there was no question of the place being inaccessible, it was merely a slight slope on the south, and on the north it was practically on a level with the village, while as for the place of assault it was sufficient to hold twice the number of persons.

(3.) The learned Judge in appeal, in dealing with this point, briefly recapitulated the above findings, and says that the Magistrate visited the spot as these were points that could be verified by a local enquiry. Before the Judge it was urged that the Magistrate had made no note at the time of his local inspection. This, the Judge says, he certainly should have done. However he had embodied the result of his inspection in his judgment, which was delivered only four days later, and when what he saw must have been fresh in his memory. Thus in the Judge s opinion his omission to make a note at the time, though irregular, cannot be said to have caused any failure of justice.