ACHARAJA SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The two petitioners have been found guilty in two separate trials of two offences under Section 420, I.P.C., and sentenced by the Sub-divisional Magistrate of Ranchi to various terms of imprisonment and fines. In each trial they were charged with offences under Secs.366, 366-A and 420, I.P.C., but acquitted on the charges under the first two of these sections. The prosecution story was that the petitioners had taken two Munda girls or young women, Giribala and Budhi, from Sonahatu, in the district of Ranchi, to Dumarkela, in the district of Monghyr, and passed them on to two Rajputs Gouri Singh and Nunu Singh as brides for a consideration of Rs. 200 each. The charges of cheating referred to these sums of money. The only question raised before us is whether the conviction is not bad because the Magistrate had no jurisdiction to try the offences of cheating which were committed in the district of Monghyr. This question was not raised before the Magistrate except during the arguments at the end of the trial, and we are told that the reason why it was not raised earlier was that charges under Secs.366 and 366-A were being tried at the same time and the Magistrate clearly had jurisdiction to try them. The objection was repeated on appeal to the Judicial Commissioner of Ranchi, who however took the view that though, strictly speaking, the trial under Section 420 should have taken place in Monghyr, the defect was cured under Section 531, Criminal P.C., as the charges under Sections 366 and 366-A were triable in Ranchi, the cheating originated from there, and the appellants could not have been prejudiced by being tried in their own district.

(2.) This view of the law is assailed by the learned Advocate for the petitioners who has cited Mt. Bhagwatia V/s. Emperor 1925 Pat 187 and contended that the trials were without jurisdiction in respect of the charges of cheating and that therefore the convictions should be set aside. The case cited does not however lay down any such proposition. It was a case in which the High Court quashed an order of commitment to the Court of Session at Arrah in respect of a bigamy which was committed at Nilphamari outside this Province altogether. Section 531, Criminal P.C., was referred to, and Bucknill, J., (with whom Adami, J.. agreed) observed: It is however not at all clear that the provisions of this section contemplate a case in which there has been an order by a Court which had no territorial jurisdiction at all, such as in a case in which jurisdiction could only properly have been exercised by some Court outside the territorial limits of the jurisdiction of a provincial High Court.

(3.) That consideration does not arise in the present case; nor is there anything in the wording of Section 531 to support the contention of the learned Advocate that the section cannot be so given effect to as to abrogate Section 177. The latter section only provides for the ordinary place of inquiry and trial, and there is no difficulty whatsoever in reading it along with Section 531, the result being that a conviction cannot be set aside merely on the ground that the trial has taken place in a wrong district but that the party aggrieved is entitled to have the conviction set aside if he shows that "such error has in fact occasioned a failure of justice." It was also contended that the error has in fact occasioned a failure of justice in that the petitioners were unable to defend themselves properly and ascertain facts about the prosecution witnesses from Monghyr and adduce defence witnesses who could properly be from that district. That does not seem to have been so much as suggested before the trying Magistrate, who after pointing out that no objection as to jurisdiction was taken till the arguments, adds that in his opinion the accused were not prejudiced to any extent by the trial held in that Court. The learned Judicial Commissioner also came to the conclusion that the petitioners could not have been prejudiced by the trial in the wrong district. Nothing has been said before us to show that the lower Courts were in error in taking that view. The application of Section 531 of the Code was considered in Kali Charan Kundu v. Emperor 1921 Cal 114, to which Mr. Jafar Imam referred us, and several other cases, such as Ganapathy Chetty, In re 1920 Mad 824, in which Sadashiva Ayyar, J., pointed out that the policy of the Criminal Procedure Code as shown by Secs.531 to 538 is: To uphold in most cases the orders passed by the criminal Court which lacked local jurisdiction or which had committed illegalities or irregularities unless failure of justice has been occasioned or is likely to be occasioned thereby.