S H JHABWALA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by 27 accused persons in what is known as the Meerut Conspiracy case. The trial has become somewhat notorious on account of its unprecedented duration. All the accused persons, except Hutchinson, were arrested in March 1929, (Hutchinson was arrested in June of the same year) and have all this time, except for the period during which some of them were released on bail, been detained in jail. The trial commenced in the Court of the Committing Magistrate on a complaint filed on 15 March 1929, and on a supplementary complaint against Hutchinson on 11 June 1929.

(2.) The entire proceedings have now lasted for nearly four years and a half. This is accounted for as follows: (1) The preliminary proceedings before the Magistrate took over seven months, resulting in the commitment of the accused to the Court of Session on 14 January 1930; (2) in the Sessions Court the prosecution evidence took over 13 months; (3) the recording of the statements of the accused occupied over 10 months; (4) the defence evidence lasted for about two months (5) The arguments continued for over four and a half months; (6) the learned Sessions Judge took over five months thereafter to pronounce his judgment; (7) the last of the appeals was filed in the High Court on 17 March. 1933, and, as the paper-books were all ready and printed, 10 April 1933, was fixed for the hearing of the appeals. But the accused themselves applied for an adjournment of the hearing till after the long vacation, to which the Crown counsel agreed. Accordingly 24 July 1933, was fixed for the appeals, on which date the arguments commenced, and having lasted for eight working days were concluded yesterday.

(3.) The case was conducted on a gigantic scale. The evidence consists of 25 printed volumes of folio size. There are altogether over 3,500 prosecution exhibits, over 1,500 defence exhibits and no less than 320 witnesses were examined. The judgment itself is in two printed volumes covering 676 pages of folio size. A mass of documentary evidence consisting of papers in printed, type-written, and manuscript forms, books, pamphlets, letters, notes, slips, and other documents found in the possession of the various accused at the time of the searches, as well as those found at the search of numerous other places have been produced, and there is a mass of oral evidence, both from India and England, to prove them. There is also voluminous evidence to prove the various political activities of all the accused and their association with each other. We think it is necessary to make a few observations in regard to the proceedings. In the first place, there seems to be an erroneous impression that the entire evidence for the prosecution must be produced before the Committing Magistrate and that the Magistrate has no option to postpone the recording of such evidence. This view is based on, the language of Section 208, Criminal P.C., under which the Magistrate is bound to take all such evidence as may be produced in support of the prosecution or on behalf of the accused.