BAKSHI RAM Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The decision of the question referred to this Bench depends on the interpretation of Section 408, Criminal P.C., and in particular on the answer to the question whether the trial of a case, in accordance with the provisions of the Code, extends to the time of the delivery of judgment or terminates at some stage before the Judge or the Magistrate proceeds to write or to deliver his judgment. The relevant portion of Section 408 of the Code is as follows: Any person convicted on a trial held by an Assistant Sessions Judge, a District Magistrate or other Magistrate of the First Glass...may appeal to the Court of Session.

(2.) The provisos to that section are immaterial for the purposes of the present judgment. In order to appreciate the respective contentions of the parties relating to the true interpretation of the word "trial" in this section, it is necessary to state the following facts : The appellants before us were committed to the Court of Session to stand their trial in a case known as the Railway Ticket Forgery Conspiracy Case. Their trial commenced in the Court of Session on 12 August 1936. The presiding officer of the Court was Mr. Crofts, I.C.S., who was then an Assistant Sessions Judge. The evidence for the prosecution and for the defence was concluded on 21 November 1936, and the arguments in the case were finished on 2 December, 1936, and the learned Judge delivered his judgment on 5 December 1936. He convicted the appellants before us. After the conclusion of the arguments and before the delivery of judgment, viz. between 3 and 5th December 1936, Mr. Crofts was informed by the Local Government that he had been made an Additional Sessions Judge with effect from the date that he commenced the trial of the case. This order of the Local Government, though retrospective in terms, could, in view of the provisions of Section 39 of the Code, take effect only from the date on which the said order was communicated to Mr. Crofts. Section 39 runs as follows: 39. (1) In conferring powers under this Code the Local Government may, by order, empower persons specially by name or in virtue of their office or classes of officials generally by their official titles. (2) Every such order shall take effect from the date on which it is communicated to the person so empowered,

(3.) It is therefore dear that till the conclusion of the arguments, Mr. Crofts was seized of the case in his capacity as Assistant Sessions Judge but he wrote and delivered the judgment as an Additional Sessions Judge. The appellants before us filed an appeal in this Court against their conviction and at the time of the hearing of the appeal, a preliminary objection was raised by the learned Counsel for the Bail-way. He argued that as the trial was held by Mr. Crofts, as Assistant Sessions Judge, the appeal did lie in the Court of Session and not in this Court. His argument was that the trial came to an end when the arguments were finished in the case and that the writing or the delivery of the judgment was no part of the trial, and therefore the appellants had no right of appeal to this Court. The learned Counsel for the appellants on the other hand contended that the word trial in Section 408 includes the judgment and in particular the punishment inflicted on the party convicted and he accordingly argued that as the judgment was delivered by Mr. Crofts after he had been made an Additional Sessions Judge, the trial, or at any rate part of the trial must be deemed to have been held by an Additional Sessions Judge, and as such the appeal lay to this Court. The decision of the question raised depends on the interpretation of the words "convicted on a trial held by an Assistant Sessions Judge" in Section 408, Criminal P.C. The words quoted above which occur in Section 408 were judicially interpreted by the Madras High Court in Tirumala Venkata Reddy V/s. Ramayya (1928) 15 A.I.R. Mad. 55 but that decision does not touch the question before us. In that case a Magistrate of the Second Class commenced the trial of a criminal case and framed a charge against the accused. Thereafter he was invested with the powers of a Magistrate of the First Class and after he was so invested, he continued the trial, examined witnesses for the defence and convicted the accused. The Madras High Court held that the appeal against the conviction lay to the Court of Session as the trial of the case was held by a Magistrate of the First Class. It would be noticed that in that case part of the trial was undoubtedly held by a Magistrate of the First Class and the question now before us did not arisen for decision in that case. There are however a number of judicial decisions in which similar words occurring in Section 407 have formed the subject of interpretation, but most of those cases are also of no help for the decision of the question raised before us. Section 407(1) provides that: Any person convicted on a trial held by any Magistrate of the Second or Third Class...may appeal to the District Magistrate.