RAM CHANDAR SAHAI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this case the applicant in revision has been convicted on two charges one under Section 170, INdian Penal Code, for which he received three months imprisonment, and that charge is not before the Court, and the other under Section 334, INdian Penal Code, on which he has also received three months imprisonment, and in respect of that he raises the question as to whether the charge complied with the law. IN my opinion it did not, and it failed to comply with the law, not in any formal technical or subsidiary statement, but in a failure to state in any substantial form the nature and particulars of the offence alleged against the accused. Where, of course, an offence charged involves consequences which may be stated in a general form, such as may arise in a case of arson where a man may by one act of arson set fire and destroy several stacks of several persons, no particular is required, the nature of the offence being sufficiently stated by the date, time and place of the setting of fire; but extortion or obtaining money from persons by unlawful means to my mind involves stating with some approach to accuracy the approximate amounts alleged to have been obtained from each person and the nature of the extortion used against each person, it is not sufficient to say that at the close of the evidence the accused knows what is alleged against him. The object of Sections 221, 222 and 223, Criminal Procedure Code, is clearly to enable him to know the substantive charges which he will have to meet and to be ready for them before the evidence is given. IN my opinion, the conviction must be quashed. The irregularity was not such a one as is cured by appearance even without objection. I have declined to consider the merits. I know nothing whatever about them. The result of this decision is that the accused has not been lawfully tried for the extortion alleged against him in the evidence which was called on behalf of the prosecution. There is nothing in the law which, by reason of this unlawful conviction, having been set aside, prevents him from being lawfully tried on any charge which the prosecution may hereafter be advised to bring against him in proper form. The result, therefore, is that the conviction for extortion and the sentence of three months imprisonment passed in respect thereof willbe set aside.