DAHU RAUT Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Some weeks ago a complaint was made in Court to the Acting Chief Justice by the Deputy Legal Remembrancer that certain orders passed by my learned brother and myself were illegal and made without jurisdiction. No petition or affidavit was filed, and the process was wholly irregular, as the Deputy Legal Remembrancer, and the Legal Remembrancer who instructed him, ought to have known. The Acting Chief Justice quite properly decided that he had no jurisdiction whatsoever to interfere with the orders of the Division Bench. But as I had heard about the complaint, and expressed my willingness to consider the matter further, he directed that my learned brother and myself should form a Division Bench, when the Crown could mention the matter, if it was so advised. I fail to understand what was the object of making a complaint to the Acting Chief Justice, or what interest he was alleged to have in the matter. Such a procedure was an act of disrespect to the Court, directly to the Division Bench, and indirectly to the Acting Chief Justice. No complaint had been made to us by the Deputy Legal Remembrancer or anyone else, and the Deputy Legal Remembrancer presumably, and the Legal Remembrancer who instructed turn, had some knowledge of the legal position, which was stated with clarity and precision by Sir Comer Petheram, C.J., and a Full Bench in In the matter of the petition of F. W, Gibbons (1887) 14 Cal 42, decided so far back as the year 1886, which decision no one since has seriously attempted to question.

(2.) A judgment of two Judges of this Court sitting as a Criminal Bench is a judgment of the High Court of judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and no other Judge or Bench of Judges of this Court has power to override such judgment. The judicial powers of the Chief Justice are not greater than or different from, but exactly the same as, those of any other Judge of the Court. On this point reference may be made to the case of Empress V/s. Khagendra Nath Banerji (1898) 2 CWN 481. Moreover, in my opinion the Court when it has signed its judgment has no power to alter or review it, except to correct a clerical error. ( Section 369, Criminal P.C.) The four orders to which exception has been taken were as follows.

(3.) Appeal No. 326 of 1933.-The form of the order was "the appeal is admitted. The sentence passed on the appellant is reduced to six months rigorous imprisonment." That was a case in which the appellant, who was a farash working in the Imperial Secretariat Buildings, and a young man with no previous conviction, was convicted of stealing some bags containing bundles of forms, which he asserted were waste paper, but which the prosecution said were unused and current forms. In the circumstances we thought that six months rigorous imprisonment was ample.