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TMI Blog1941 (7) TMI 24X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... it is expedient in the interests of justice that an inquiry should be made into any offence referred to in Section 195, which includes offences under Section 193 of the Indian Penal Code; so that we have to be satisfied that it is expedient in the interests of justice that there should be a prosecution. 3. The facts are that the applicants made a statement before the Magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, alleging, in some detail, that they had witnessed the murder of a man named Rayappa. The alleged murderer was subsequently prosecuted, but at the inquiry before the committing Magistrate the applicants resiled from their statements, and said that in point of fact they had seen nothing, and that the statements whic ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... atement under Section 164 and the subsequent evidence in Court constituted a series of acts within the meaning of Section 236 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and that consequently it was legitimate to frame a charge in the alternative, a charge of perjury committed either before the Magistrate taking a statement under Section 164 or subsequently in Court, and to record an alternative conviction. The Court in that case consisted of five Judges, one of whom, Mr. Justice Shah, dissented from that proposition. The authority of the case may be open to question, since there had been a previous decision of a full bench of this Court of four Judges in Queen-Empress v. Mugappd bin Ningapa (1893) I.L.R. 18 Bom. 377, F.B., which had reached a differen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... his subject further, since, for the purpose of the present appeal, I am prepared to assume that an alternative charge of perjury lies, and that it was a charge of that nature which the learned Additional Sessions Judge contemplated. The question then is whether it is expedient in the interests of justice that such a charge should be made. 5. Now, to my mind, in determining that question it is absolutely essential that the Court should make up its mind whether it was the statement before the Magistrate under Section 164, or the statement subsequently made in Court, which was false. J. gather from the judgment of the learned Additional Sessions Judge that he is disposed to think that it was the statement made under Section 164 which was fa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... p. 622): This, then, is how matters stand. The Court is convinced that of the contradictory statements now under consideration those made in this Court were true, but those before the Magistrate were false; and on a careful consideration of the events leading up to the examination before the committing Magistrate, and of the conditions under which that examination was conducted, we are clearly of opinion that the sanction sought should not be given. Had Tripura repeated here the false story he told before the Magistrate, no such application as the present would have been made: is it to be granted because he had told the truth here? Certainly not. 7. In my opinion, that reasoning applies, not only when the Court is satisfied that it is ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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