GOLAM RAHMAN KHAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule arises out of an application for the transfer of a case or in the alternative for an order on the Magistrate directing production of two police diaries. It appears that the petitioners who were prosecuted under Secs.307, 326 and 120-B, I.P. C, applied to the Magistrate under Section 208, Criminal: P.C, for calling for two police diaries. This was on 18th December 1931 and the learned Magistrate on the petitioner's application passed an order: "Call for the record." When on 7 January 1932, the next day for the hearing of the case the diaries were found not to have arrived, the petitioners again put in a petition before the Magistrate by which they renewed their prayer adding that the two. Sub-Inspectors (one of whom was mentioned by name in the petition) who had been in charge of the thanas might be summoned as witnesses to produce the diaries. The learned Magistrate rejected this prayer on the ground that the petitioners had not prayed before for issue of summons on the Sub- Inspector who was named in that petition.

(2.) The order of the learned Magistrate whereby he refused the petitioner's prayer for having the two diaries called for and produced in Court cannot in our opinion be supported. The petition was evidently made under Section 208, Criminal P.C. and the learned Magistrate was under that section bound to take steps for the production of the documents wanted by the accused unless he deemed it unnecessary to do so. Here as it would appear from what I have said above the learned Magistrate never considered that it was unnecessary to call for those records. As a matter of fact he on 18 December actually passed an order calling for the records in question. The learned Magistrate in his explanation says that the petitioners in their petition had not given sufficient information to trace the two diaries in question. Put it nowhere appears in the record that it was on that ground that the learned Magistrate rejected the prayer of the petitioners. The informations that are to be found in the petition filed by the petitioners before the Magistrate are sufficient for the tracing of the two documents if a little care be taken to trace them. The result is that the Rule is made absolute and the learned Magistrate is directed to have produced before him the two documents if they are in existence, as alleged by the petitioners. Remfry, J.

(3.) I agree.