NARENDRA CHANDRA RUDRA PAL Vs. SABARALI BHUIYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question referred is whether the provisions of Section 360, Criminal Procedure Code, are applicable to an enquiry under Section 145, Criminal Procedure Code. The difficulty arises from the requirement that the deposition of each witness should be read over to him in the presence of the accused, if in attendance, or of his pleader, if he appears by pleader, and the question for our decision becomes nothing more than this, viz., whether persons against whom proceedings under Section 145, Criminal Procedure Code, have been initiated are accused with the meaning of Section 360, Criminal Procedure Code.

(2.) The word "accused" is one of the words that have not been defined in any statute. Our attention has been drawn to various decisions in which a definition has been attempted. For the purpose for which those decisions were given, they may be accepted as correct, but I do not think it necessary to consider whether the definition may be regarded as satisfactory for all purposes, for to my mind they have been rendered obsolete by the changes introduced in Section 340, Criminal Procedure Code, by Act XVIII of 1923. That section, before the amendment, ran: "Every person accused before any Criminal Court may of right be defended by a pleader." It now runs: "Any person accused of an offence before a Criminal Court or against whom proceedings are instituted under this Code in any such Court may of right be defended by a pleader." The second clause says that "any person against whom proceedings are instituted in any such Court under Section 107, or under Chap. X, Chap. XI, Chap. XII or Chap. XXXVI or under Section 552 may offer himself as a witness in such proceedings." The first clause recognises two classes of persons who may be before a Court, those who are accused of an offence, and those against whom proceedings under the Code are instituted, and the second clause emphasises the distinction by enacting that many of those of the second class may offer themselves as witnesses in such proceedings. In my judgment the effect of this amendment is to narrow the meaning of the word "accused" and to limit it to those who are accused of an offence. With all deference to those who take a different view I do not think that any of the alarming results which they picture, will follow from attributing to the word "accused" the narrow meaning. As for the suggestion that the provisions of Section 360, Criminal Procedure Code, will cease to apply to evidence given in proceedings under Sec. 145, Criminal Procedure Code, I see no difficulty in reading the first clause of Section 360 as meaning that the evidence is to be read over to the witness in the presence of the accused if there is one, that is to say, in proceedings under Section 145, Criminal Procedure Code, to each witness must be read over the deposition which he gives, but it will not - be necessary that either the parties to the proceeding or their pleaders should be present.

(3.) This view is, I think, in accordance with the provisions of the law, and it has in its favour that it avoids the immense practical difficulties that might result from the other view, and that it does not demand in summary proceedings as to possession a more elaborate procedure than is prescribed for the civil proceedings which will finally determine questions of title.