Judgment

BOSE J. : We have three appellants before us. All were prosecuted for the murder of one Babu Singh. Of these, Surendra Singh alone was convicted of the murder and was sentenced to death. The other two were convicted under section 225, I. P. C. Each was sentenced to three years regorous imprisonment and to a fine of Rs. 200.

2. All three appealed to the High Court at all High Court at Allahabad (Lucknow Bench) and the appeal was heard on 11-12-1952 by Kidwai and Bhargava JJ. Judgment was reserved. Before it could be delivered Bhargava J. was transferred to Allahabad. While there he dictated a "judgment" purporting to do so on behalf of himself and his brother Judge, that is to say, it purported to be a joint judgment he used the pronoun "we" and not "I". He signed every page of the judgment as well as at the end but did not date it. He then sent this to Kidwai J. at Lucknow. He died on 24-12-1952 before the "judgment" was delivered. After his death, on 5-1-1953 his brother Judge Kidwai J. purported to deliver the "judgment" of the Court. He signed it and dated it. The date he placed on it was 5-1-1953. Bhargava J. s signature was still there and anyone reading the judgment and not knowing the facts would conclude that Bhargava J. was a party to the delivery on 5-1-1953. The appeal was dismissed and the sentence of death was confirmed. The question is whether this "judgment" could be validly delivered after the death of one of the two Judge who heard the appeal.

3. The argument covered a wide range but we intend to confine ourselves to the facts of this case and only deal with the narrower issues which arise here.

4. Delivery of judgment is a solemn act which carries with it serious consequences for the person or persons involved. In a criminal case it often means the difference between freedom and jail, and when there is a conviction with a sentence of imprisonment, it alters the status of a prisoner from an under-trial to that of a convict; also the term of his sentence start from the moment judgment is delivered. It is therefore necessary to know with certainty exactly when these consequences start to take effect. For that reason rules have been drawn up to determine the manner in which and the time from when the decision is to take effect and crystallise into an act which is thereafter final so far as the court delivering the judgment is concerned.

5. Now these rules are not all the same though they are designed to achieve the same result. The Criminal Procedure Code takes care of courts subordinate to the High Court. Sections 366 and 424 deal with them. The High Courts have power to make their own rules. The power is now conferred, or rather continued, under Article 225 of the Constitution.

6. The Allahabad High Court framed its present set of Rules in 1952. They came into force on the 15th of September in that year. We are concerned with the following in Chapter VII dealing with the judgment and decree, namely Rules 1-4.

7. These rules provide for four different situations: (1) for judgments which are pronounced at once as soon as the case has been heard; (2) for those which are pronounced on some future date; (3) for judgments which are oral, and (4) for those which are written. These rules use the word "pronounced" in some places and "delivered" in others. Counsel tried to make capital out of this and said that a judgment had to be both "pronounced" and "delivered" and that they were two different things.

8. We do not intend to construe these rules too technically because they are designed, as indeed 196 are all rules, to further the ends of justice and must not be viewed too narrowly; nor do we desire to curtail the jurisdiction which the Privy Council point out is inherent in courts to make good inherent defects caused by accidents such as death. As this decision of the Judicial Committee was relied on in the arguments we will quote the passage which is relevant here. It is at page 295 of - Firm Gokal Chand v. Fir