EMPEROR Vs. KURWA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case while headed as a criminal appeal has been heard by us on the revisional side, since it has already been ruled by this Court that an application by the Local Government against an order of a Sessions Judge setting aside an order that an accused person should furnish security is an application which can only lie on the revisional side and no appeal can be filed at all. We have, therefore, heard it as a revision.

(2.) This Court has time and again pointed out to the police and to Magistrates the great desirability of proceeding in these cases strictly in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, but the advice repeatedly given is as regularly ignored; and so it has been in this case. The proceedings commenced with what purports to be an order under Section 112, Criminal P.C., by which it is suggested that notice was given in accordance with law to the accused of what charges he had to meet. The notice describes him as an habitual thief and "mischief-doer" and as having had the reputation of being such in the locality. "Mischief-doer" no doubt refers to habitually committing mischief within the terms of Section 110(d). So far there is no objection to be taken to the notice. It continues: "You have been suspected in the follow ling crimes." It has been ruled numbers of times by this Court and other Courts that evidence cannot be led in these cases under Section 110, that an accused person has been suspected of committing such and such offences. To allow that sort of evidence is to admit what is purely hearsay evidence and nothing else. What apparently so often misleads the Magistrates in this respect is that evidence of general repute can be given in support of a charge of being an habitual thief, etc. But evidence of general repute is evidence of a definite fact and is in no sense hearsay evidence.

(3.) The notice continues by describing the crimes of which the accused is said to be suspected as. Crime No. 24, crime No. 23, crime No. 13 and crime No. 8.