AFIRUDDI CHAKDAR Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The nine appellants were triad by the Sessions Judge of Faridpur and a Jury. The Jury found them all guilty under Section 148 of the Indian Penal Code, and also under Section 304 read with Section 149. They further found four of the appellants guilty of substantive offences under Section 324. The Sessions Judge accepted the verdict of the Jury and sentenced the appellants to various terms of imprisonment. The appeal is based on the ground of misdirection in the charge delivered by the learned Sessions Judge to the Jury.

(2.) The first part of the charge deals at some little length with the difference between stories which are wholly true, stories which are partly true and partly false and stories which are wholly false. No exception can be taken to this part of the charge but it may be doubtful whether it gave the Jury very much assistance.

(3.) We have no desire in this connection to lay down any precise rule as to the form which a charge should take. The form and contents of the charge will vary, of course, with the circumstances of individual cases, with the nature of the evidence the Judge has to deal with and the mode in which the case for the prosecution and the case for the defence are conducted. Generally speaking, however, it is usual to begin a charge by setting cut the offence or offences which the prisoner is charged with having committed and explaining the law relating to those offences. Then the case for the prosecution and the case for the defence may be referred to, and such comments made on the evidence adduced on either side as the Sessions Judge may think it desirable or useful to the Jury, to make. Care should be taken to place the defence set up fairly before the Jury and to ensure that the Jury appreciate the issue or issues which they have to try. The charge should, of course, include the usual warning as to the duty of the Jury to the prosecution on the one hand and to the prisoner on the other. Having said so much, I repeat that I by no means imply that a charge must necessarily take one form rather than another. We should certainly not have interfered in this case merely on account of the order followed by the learned Judge in the remarks which be addressed to the Jury.