LOCAL GOVERNMENT Vs. GAMBHIR BHUJUA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Local Government has applied under Section 339 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code for the sanction of this Court to the prosecution of one Gambhir Bhujua for the offence of giving false evidence in respect of a statement made by him after acceptance of a conditional tender of a pardon made under Section 337 of the Code.

(2.) THE facts are these. Gambhir and two other men were arrested on an accusation of having murdered one Munna Teli, and put before a Magistrate on the 24th of September 1925. On that day the Magistrate offered Gambhir a pardon according to the provisions of Section 337 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He accepted the offer and was immediately examined as a witness, but denied at considerable length that he knew anything about the murder under enquiry. Subsequently a written petition signed by him was put before the Magistrate saying that he wished to give a full and true account of the murder of Munna Teli and, for that purpose, to be examined again. He was accordingly examined again on the 15th of October and then gave an account of the murder which agrees with the account given by the prosecution and subsequently found to be true in the Sessions Court at the trial of the other two men.

(3.) THE other two accused were committed for trial on the 11th of November. On the following day Gambhir sent a written petition to the Magistrate, which is on the file of the Sessions Court, saying that on the 15th of October the Court Inspector had sent for him and given him something to smoke which intoxicated him, and had told him something which he had repeated in Court, being then still tinder the influence of the drug, but it was not true and his earlier statement was. He was examined on the 11th of December in the Sessions Court as a witness in the trial of the other two men, and again at great length denied that he knew anything about the murder, with explanations or denials of what he was alleged to have said and done in connexion with the offence and during the investigation by the police.