RAMANUGRAH SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave from an order of the High Court of Judicature at Patna made on 21st February 1945, convicting the appellant upon a charge of murder under S. 302, Indian Penal Code, and sentencing him to transportation for life. By the same order, the High Court convicted the appellant upon two charges under S. 324, Indian Penal Code, of voluntarily causing hurt by shooting, and sentenced him upon each of these charges to three years' rigorous imprisonment. This appeal relates only to the conviction under S. 302. The judgment of the High Court was given upon a reference made by the Sessions Judge of Patna under S. 307, Criminal P. C., and the matter to be determined in this appeal relates to the duties and powers of a High Court in India upon such a reference. The question has frequently been considered by High Courts in India, but has not been the subject-so far as their Lordships are aware - of a ruling by this Board.

(2.) When the matter first came before the Court, the Sub-divisional Magistrate who dealt with it discharged the appellant and the other accused, being of opinion that the prosecution evidence was such that no Court would be likely to convict upon it. This order of discharge was upheld in appeal by Mr. Salisbury, the then Sessions Judge of Patna; but on an application in revision to the High Court at Patna, that Court took the view that the evidence disclosed a prima facie case, and ordered the commitment of the appellant under Ss. 302 and 324, Indian Penal Code, and of the appellant and certain other persons under S. 201. Accordingly, the Magistrateframed charges against the appellant, first, of committing the murder of Nanku Mahton, being an offence under S. 302, Indian Penal Code; secondly, of causing hurt to Rajinder Singh by shooting him, being an offence under S. 324; thirdly, of causing hurt to Sital Singh by shooting him, being an offence under S. 324. There was also a charge under S. 201 of causing evidence of the murder to disappear, but nothing turns upon this since the High Court recorded no conviction upon it.

(3.) The case was tried before Mr. S. K. Das, the then Sessions Judge of Patna, and a jury. On 26 August 1944 the jury returned their verdict, and by a majority of 5 to 2 acquitted the appellant upon the charge of murder under S. 302, and by a majority of 4 to 3 convicted him upon the two charges under S. 324. The Sessions Judge was dissatisfied with the verdict of the jury upon the charge of murder brought against the appellant, and, being clearly of opinion that it was necessary for the ends of justice to do so, submitted the case of the appellant to the High Court under S. 307, Criminal P. C. It appears from the judgment delivered by the learned Sessions Judge and from his letter of reference, that he thought that the jury, in convicting the appellant under S. 324, had accepted in substance the case for the prosecution, and that the acquittal of the appellant under S. 302 rendered the verdict self-centradictory. But the case cannot be disposed of on so simple a basis. No doubt in convicting the appellant under S. 324, the jury muni be taken to have rejected the evidence of alibi set up by the appellant, and they may also be taken to have rejected the version of the shooting suggested by the defence in cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses, though supported by no substantive evidence, that the killing of Nanku Mahton and the wounding of Rajinder Singh and Sital Singh were the work of Jodhi Singh, the father of the appellant, acting in self-defence and that the shooting took place in the dalan of Jodhi's bungalow. But there is no inherent contradiction in the jury holding that there was satisfactory evidence that the appellant founded two men in the circumstances alleged by the prosecution, but that there was no satisfactory evidence that he killed the third man, or alternatively, killed him in circumstances which rendered the killing culpable homicide. Any Court called upon to pronounce upon the correctness of the verdict would be bound to consider the evidence.