RAJA RAM Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application has been argued by Mr. Kapildev Malaviya on the ground that the trial Court and the lower appellate Court have both given a value to two statements admitted under Section 288, Criminal P.C. to which they are not entitled by law. The facts of the case are given fully in the judgment of the lower appellate Court.

(2.) The principal evidence for the prosecution was that of the complainant, Suggan, who was poisoned and the two bakers Ram Chander and Khazan, who were attracted to the dharamshala by the cries of the poisoned man, and who testified to finding the present applicant Raja Ram, who is a boy of 16, m the dhasamshala, together with the complainant Suggan, while the other person who had accompanied the applicant to the dharamshala ran away. The case for the prosecution was that the applicant was in league with this person who had escaped to administer poison to Suggan in order to rob him. The argument is that if the statements admitted under Section 288, Criminal P.C. are ignored, there is no evidence to prove that the applicant himself had any guilty knowledge.

(3.) The case on which Mr. Malayiya has relied is that of Emperor V/s. Jehal Teli 1925 Pat 51, in which it was remarked (p. 794): I think therefore that the principle is quite clearly settled by this line of cases that unless there is clearly present, besides the evidence given before the Magistrate, evidence which will show that the evidence given before the Magistrate should be preferred to and substituted for that given before the Sessions Judge, the evidence given before the Magistrate cannot be effectively utilised in support of a conviction.