BASIREDDI NARAPPA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the appellant;, the 1 accused in Sessions Case No. 76 of 1922 before the Sessions Judge of Ananthapur, was convicted by the learned Sessions Judge Of the murder of one Vodde Chinnagadu, a servant in his house, on the night of the 20 of May 1922 and sentenced to transportation for life.

(2.) There were three accused originally but accused 2 and 3 have been acquitted by the learned Judge. Before we consider the evidence in the case, it will be convenient to deal with a preliminary point which has been raised in the case based upon what is called the tender of a pardon to this accused.

(3.) It is contended for the accused by his learned pleader that the pardon was not properly forfeited or cancelled and that it was an obstacle in the way of his having been tried, as he has been along with the other accused. But, in the circumstances of the case we think such a pardon will not be a proper objection to the trial. What happened was that this accused promised at first to make a clean breast of all the circumstances of the murder and be was tendered a pardon conditional on his doing so. Before he was treated as an approver and put into the box, he made a statement to the Court that he did not want the pardon and that he wished to be tried and that the pardon might, therefore, be cancelled. We think it is open to an accused, who has accepted pardon in the first instance, to resile from that pardon and to say that he does not want the pardon and that he is not willing to give evidence but wishes to be tried, so that his character may be cleared. In those circumstances, we cannot treat the pardon as an accepted pardon. The acceptance must continue in force till the person pardoned actually gives evidence and it is only then that any question would arise as to whether he has forfeited the pardon by his not giving true evidence in the case. But as in this case the pardon though accepted for a time, was rejected by the accused himself before it really took effect, We cannot treat this as a case falling under Section, 339, Cr.P.C., and, therefore we think it was not an objection to the trial of this accused along with the other accused for the offence of murder. In the case cited to us, Arunachellam V/s. Emperor (1909) 31 Mad. 272 the circumstances were different. There the person to whom the pardon was tendered did not refuse to give evidence. He did go into the witness-box and was giving evidence. What happened was that he began to say things which were not in consonance with what he led the prosecution to expect he would say, and in consequence of that, his pardon was cancelled and be was put into the dock at once. It was that procedure that this Court decided was not a proper procedure; because when a person has accepted a pardon and is giving evidence, he cannot be tried till it is shown that the evidence which he gave is not a full and true statement of the facts he knew and the pardon forfeited; that should be done in a separate proceeding and be should ordinarily be tried for the offence, if the pardon is found to have been forfeited, in a separate trial. That is not the case here, because the accused himself, as we have said already, rejected the pardon before it took effect.