SALAG RAM Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for the transfer of a criminal case that is pending, in the Court of Mr. Crofts, Assistant Sessions Judge of Dehra Dun. The hearing of the case commenced in the Court of the learned Judge on the 12 August and continued till 31 August 1936. During this interval 82 witnesses for the prosecution were examined. I am informed that about 70 of these witnesses were formal witnesses. On the 31 August the present application for transfer was filed before me and I ordered notice of the-application to be issued and directed that;, the proceedings be stayed meanwhile. The record was also summoned. The application is supported by an affidavit that contains no less than 47 paragraphs. The learned Judge has submitted his explanation as regards the allegations contained in the affidavit. The application has been argued at length by Mr. Ram Mohan Lal, the learned Counsel for the applicant, and by Mr. Kedar Nath who represents the Crown. There are 11 accused in the case and they are charged with offences punishable under Secs.120(b), 467, 468 and certain other sections of the Indian Penal Code. All the accused in the case except one-named Mohan Lal were on bail during the trial. In the course of the trial the learned Judge passed certain orders that are bad in law and cannot be supported. The accused also were responsible for a number of applications that were either frivolous or were couched in unnecessarily offensive language. The trial was originally to take place in the Court of Mr. P.N. Agha, Assistant Sessions Judge at Saharanpur, and was to commence from 4 August. 1936. But the learned Judge became indisposed and took leave and the case was then, by the order of this Court, transferred to the file of Mr. Crofts. Before the trial commenced on the 12 August. Mr. Ram Mohan Lal, the counsel for Salag, Ram who is the applicant before me, filed an application for the postponement of the case. He prayed that the proceedings be stayed for four days "to get breathing time for the case." In this application it was stated that: Probably as the rumour goes with a view to avoid this big and stifi case for reasons best known to him, the applicants came to know that he. (Mr. P.N. Agha) was reported sick of high blood pressure four days before the case actually started.

(2.) All that I need observe is that this aspersion on Mr. Agha was wholly unmerited and certainly uncalled for and the learned Counsel would have been better advised to refrain from using these words in the application. The application met with the fate that it deserved. It was dismissed by Mr. Crofts on the same day. He rightly observed in his order that as the case was "originally fixed for a week or more ago at Saharanpur" the accused must be presumed to have instructed their lawyers and therefore the adjournment prayed for was unnecessary. Within two or three days of the last mentioned order controversy arose in the Court below as to the liability of the accused, who were on bail, to pay the expenses of defence witnesses. This controversy was set at rest by Mr. Crofts by his order dated 15 August 1936. The propriety of this order would be considered if the case comes in appeal to this Court. At any rate I am not called upon at the present stage to express my opinion as regards the correctness or otherwise of this order.

(3.) On the same date, viz. on 15 August, a witness named Amar Nath was examined. He was cross-examined by the learned counsel for the accused and then certain questions were put to him in re-examination. I have perused his statement and I have no hesitation in observing that new and fresh matter was introduced in the course of re-examination. That being so, Mr. Ram Mohan Lal was perfectly justified in asking the Court to allow him to further cross-examine Amar Nath. But the Court refused to allow him more than three minutes to cross- examine the witness. This order of the learned Judge is indefensible. The learned Judge failed to appreciate that the object of re-examination is to clear the ambiguities in cross-examination and that if new and important matter is allowed to be introduced in re-examination the accused has a right to cross-examine the witness as regards the matters so introduced. On 15 August the application of Mr. Ram Mohan Lal for further cross-examination was rejected and the reasons for rejecting the application were given by the learned Judge in his order dated 18th August. As I have already observed that the learned Judge was wrong in rejecting the prayer for cross-examination, I need not deal with the grounds set forth in the order dated 18 August. There is however one passage in that order that ought to be taken notice of. The learned Judge has observed that: As I have noticed a tendency in this case to trap witnesses into half truths by cutting them off in the middle of a sentence or an explanation, I give some hints on what seems to me the only fair way of examining witnesses.