EMPEROR Vs. CHARTJ GHUNDER MUKERJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case comes before us upon a Certificate of the Advocate General, befor the powers entrusted to him by the Letters Patent, and he has Certified the following points of law for our decision:--"Whether the accused should have been jointly tried; whether the direction to the Jury hereinbefore specified was right in law and whether the omissions to direct the Jury do not in law amount to a misdirection. These ate the only points submitted to us. I will deal with them in the same order in which they have been dealt with by the certificate and by the learned Counsel in the case.

(2.) I will first deal with the question of whether the two accused should have been jointly tried. That depends upon Section 239 of the Criminal P. C., which says: "When more persons than one are accused of the same offence or of different offences, committed in the same transaction... they may be charged and tried together or separately as the Court thinks fit." I entertain no doubt that in this case, the offences committed were in the same transaction: and, if that be so, it is a question for the Court, in. the exercise of its judicial discretion, to say whether the accused should be tried together or separately. The Court, in this case, in the exercise of that discretion, thought that they should be tried jointly, and having come to that conclusion, and there being nothing 10 indicate that it was not in the exercise of a proper judicial discretion, I do not see how it is open to us to interfere upon such an application as the present. That point therefore fails.

(3.) I now pass to the other points mentioned in the Certificate, viz., whether the direction to the Jury specified in the Certificate was right in law, and whether the omissions to direct the Jury do not in law amount to a misdirection.