EMPEROR Vs. KRISHNAJI VITHAL KANGUTKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision by the accused who was tried with a jury by Mr. Justice Weston on the Original Criminal Side of this Court. The accused was charged under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code in that he attempted to commit murder of his father and brother by firing a gun at them. The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty under Section 307, and the learned Judge acquitted and discharged the accused under that section. But the jury brought in a unanimous verdict of guilty under Section 286 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Judge convict-ed him under that section, and sentenced him to six months rigorous imprisonment. It is from this conviction and sentence that this revisional application has been preferred.

(2.) The Government Pleader, in the first instance, contends that no criminal revision lies from an order of conviction and sentence passed by the High Court in Sessions. Now, it is to be borne in mind that, till the Criminal Procedure Code was recently amended, no appeal lay from a conviction on a trial held by a High Court in the exercise of its original criminal jurisdiction. It was only under Act XXVI of 1943 that the right of appeal was given to a convicted person to appeal to the High Court from a conviction and sentence in a trial held by the High Court.

(3.) The revisional powers of the High Court are exercisable in relation to criminal Courts inferior to the High Court, and the Government Pleader has argued that the High Court, when it is exercising its original criminal jurisdiction, is not a Court subordinate to the High Court on its appellate side. The Government Pleader says that both the Courts are the High Courts ; they are only different divisions of the High Court, and it would be wrong to say that one division of the High Court is an inferior criminal Court to another. The Government Pleader relies on Section 6 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which defines the different classes of criminal Courts, and that section provides that besides the High Courts there are five classes of criminal Courts, and therefore that section contemplates that the High Court itself is a criminal Court like the other Courts which are enumerated in that section.