Patna High Court
Ramgobind Ram vs Emperor on 14 November, 1922
Equivalent citations: 72IND. CAS.887, AIR 1924 PATNA 381
JUDGMENT John Bucknill, J.
1. This is an application in criminal revisional jurisdiction made by one Ramgobind Ram who asks that an order of the Deputy Magistrate of Motihari, dated 24th August 1922, under which he was convicted of an offence against the provisions of Section 193 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced, to six months' rigorous imprisonment may be set aside. An appeal against this decision was lodged before the Sessions Judge of Muzaffarpore who, however, dismissed the appeal on the 9th October of this year. The whole matter is an extremely simple one and the circumstances under which this application arises appear to be very clear.
2. There was a case brought by a Factory known as the Motihari Concern against certain persons in connection with rent. One Mosadi Lal had applied to be made a co-defendant and ho was so made a party; the 17th of June had been fixed for hearing of the matter. Now on that date an application had been filed asking on behalf of Mosadi Lal, for adjournment on the ground that one of his sons was going to be married at a place called Kesaria and that it was necessary that he (Mosadi) should attend that function. Now there was no reason to suppose that this application for adjournment made by this man was in any way untrue or fictitious, and, as a matter of fact, the application was granted; presumably partially also because the applicant (Mosadi) one of the co-defendants had not upto that time applied for any adjournment of any kind or for delay in the hearing of the case. Had nothing else occurred I presume that the matter would have passed off without any comment. However, it would seem that early in the morning, between 7 and 8 A.M. (and/it must here be noticed that at that time of year the Court sits from about 6 or 6-30 A. M. until about 11-30 A. M.) an individual named Mehdi Hussain who is the Mukhtaram of the Motihari Factory and who is the complainant in the matter now under review observed Mosadi Lal somewhere near or coming to the Court compound. No doubt this man (Mehdi Hussain) naturally knew of the application which had been made by Mosadi Lai for an adjournment of the case and the ground on which it had been made and as was pointedly indicated by the Sessions Judge, the Motihari Factory had brought their witnesses to Court and were spending considerable sums in instructing their Lawyers, the presence of Mosadi Lai "after his application must have appeared to Mehdi Hussain to have needed considerable explanation. More than this, however, Mehdi Hussain states that he saw a man called Baldeo Sahai (who is said to be a clerk to a Vakil and who Was also said to be looking after Mosadi Lal's case) signalling to Mosadi Lal to go away or keep away from the Court-house. At any rate, as a result of what he saw, Mehdi Hussain, not unnaturally, went into the Court-room and told the Munsif and his Lawyer that, although this application for adjournment had been made, yet Mosadi Lal in fact was then in the Court compound; the Munsif 's chaprasi was taken out and Musadi Lal pointed out to him. The position appeared to be so equivocal that Mehdi Hussain promptly filed an affidavit to the effect of what he had seen outside the Court-house and asking that no adjournment should, under such circumstances, be granted.
3. Now the present applicant here Ramgobind Ram is the son of this co-defendant Mosadi Lai and as soon as Mehdi Hussain had filed his affidavit it is said that this Baldeo Sahai then wrote out an affidavit in the nature of a refutation of what had been stated in that lodged by Mehdi Hussain and no doubt couched in language intended to support the application which had previously been made for the adjournment on the ground of the necessary absence of Mosadi Lal at his son's wedding; this was sworn to by the applicant.
4. Now, it is stated by Counsel for the applicant that Ramgobind Ram is able to read and to write and, therefore, it must be taken that he was acquainted with the language used in the affidavit to which he put his signature and which he duly executed. As this is the document in connection with which Ramgobind Ram was prosecuted for perjury and convicted it is very important that its contents should be quite clearly seen. It reads that "My father has not come to Munsif's Court to-day owing to the marriage of a son, but has sent me to Court for taking time." Now, as I have already stated, the adjournment was granted; but, after this affidavit had been filed, Mehdi Hussain, no doubt chagrined. applied for sanction to prosecute Ramgobind Ram for having made a false affidavit; and, after the Munsif had made an enquiry, he (the Munsif) granted the sanction; Mehdi Hussain then filed a formal complaint before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Ramgobind Ram was tried, convicted, sentenced and unsuccessfully appealed in the manner details of which I have given at the commencement of these remarks.
5. Now the Deputy Magistrate who tried the case, and the Sessions Judge also, have been, it would seem, very much impressed by what I think it is only right that I should can the probabilities of the correctness of inferences which may be drawn from the whole of the circumstances which surrounded this somewhat curious affair and I think it is desirable to state the principal facts and then to try and see whether there is really any ground for considering that there was no reasonable doubt but that the applicant was deliberately and intentionally committing the offence of perjury in making this affidavit in the language in which he did. Now, I do not think it is seriously contended as I have said before that Mosadi Lal's son was not married on that day and there is no doubt that Kesaria the place where the wedding was to be celebrated is situated at some considerable distance from Motihari where the case in which Mosadi Lai was interested was being heard. It is alleged and not seriously traversed that if one desires to go to Kesaria from Motihari one can go by road by ekka which is at a distance of some 20 miles or more and that this journey would take several hours. Again if one desires to go by train one can only do so by trevelling from Motihari a certain distance towards the journey's end to a place called Pipra which is under an hour's journey and, on arrival at that last mentioned place, there still lies before one some twelve miles of road. It is also stated, and again not contradicted, that there is a train about 10 o'clock in the morning and that the marriage would in the ordinary course of events take place in the evening. It must, however, be borne in mind I think in a consideration of the general petition that no doubt it would be necessary and desirable that the father of the bridegroom should arrive at the place where the marriage was to be celebrated sometime before the actual commencement of the important part of the proceedings as he would have not only freinds to greet and see but also some arrangements which would require his presence and his adjustment. It is said, and this view has been taken by the Munsif and by the Sessions Judge,, that, as there was evidence to show that Mosadi Lal was not only in the neighbourhood of the Court-house between 7 and 8 *hat morning but that he had also been seen in company with Baldeo Sahai to purchase a revenue stamp on that date in Motihari, the conclusion should safely be come to that Mosadi Lal, Baldeo Sahai and Ramgobind Ram were together in the Court compound for most of the morning. The learned Sessions Judge adds that he thinks it is most improbable that Ramgobind Ram could have stayed at the Court all the morning without seeing his father who is proved to have been there at the time when he purchased the stamp and when Baldeo Sahai made the signal (after the petition for time had been filed) to him to indicate that he should not approach the Court-house itself. The Sessions Judge points out that it had been argued before him that the affidavit was roughly true and that it ought to be taken to mean only that Mosadi Lal was not actually present in the Court-room at the time when the affidavit was filed; but the Sessions Judge no doubt correctly points out that the affidavit does not actually say this. It was a counter-affidavit intended to refute what had been stated by the affidavit filed by Mehdi Hussain indicating to the Munsif what he had seen outside the Court-house and that on that ground Mosadi Lal's application for an adjournment ought not properly to be granted. I must confess that, if one takes a broad view of this set of facts as to the actual occurrence of the wedding and the physical or rather geographical positions of the place where the case was being heard and the place where the wedding was to be celebrated, it does not seem to me that it is altogether impossible to read into this affidavit a meaning which, although it may be taken not to be strictly accurate, is not altogether inconsistent with elementary truth; and that although its language may convey a meaning which is capable of being easily interpreted as indicative of falsity, it also may be construed in such a way as to comprise elements which may, take it outside those upon which could properly be founded a definite charge of actual perjury. The basic proposition which was in the mind of those concerned was that Mosadi Lal was going to attend a wedding that day whether he started at half past six in the morning or at eight in the morning or even later. The principal part of his application to the Court was that as it was the day of the wedding of a son of his he was not available for the purpose of attending properly to his case. The affidavit which is made by his son (the applicant) says in language which I have already given in detail that his father had not come to tie Munsif's Court that day on account of this wedding. It may be quite true that Mosadi Lal was with Baldeo Sahai purchasing a stamp in the morning for the purposes of the furtherment of his application in the case and it may well be that some time early in the morning he was actually in Motihari and near the Court but that to my mind is quite a different proposition to a statement that he was on account of those movements necessarily in a position to attend properly to and to take part in the conduct of his case in Court. It must be remembered that primarily there is no ground for considering that Mosadi's application for adjournment was based upon other than a natural, true and a reasonable cause.
6. Now the intention to commit perjury must be clearly present before a person charged with that offence can properly be convicted of it and a statement capable of being construed in any reasonable way in such committing that it does not show a clear intention of committing return or a deliberate attempt to make a false statement does not per se contain the elements of the offence. In this case I am of opinion that although it may be that the probabilities of the case indiacte that Ramgobind Ram may have been aware of his father's presence in the neighbourhood of the Courthouse it does not follow that even if he was so aware of his presence the language of his affidavit is incapable of a construction other than that of a perjury character. Indeed, the learned Sessions Judge has carefully pointed out that there was in fact no evidence to show that Mosadi Lal and Ramgobind Ram had at any time that day been seen in company together.
7. I, therefore, have come to the conclusion that this was a case in which there was sufficient doubt as to whether there was an intention to commit perjury or not to justify an acquittal and I have no hesitation, under the circumstances which are disclosed in this matter and which have been most ably placed before me by setting Counsel for the applicant, in setting aside the conviction.