Judgment

SHELAT, J. :- These two appeals founded on special leave obtained from this Court, are directed against two orders passed by the High Court of Allahabad, dated March 16, 1967 and July 24, 1967 respectively. The first order was passed in Criminal Miscellaneous application No. 3334 of 1966 under Sec. 561-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the Criminal case against the respondent pending before the Third Temporary Additional Sessions Judge, Allahabad on charges under Ss. 408 and 477A of the Penal Code. A learned Single Judge of the High Court allowed that application and quashed the said proceedings as the State had failed to file any counter-affidavit against the statements made by the respondent in the said application. The second order was passed in an application filed by the State for recalling the said order. The same learned Judge dismissed that application observing that the State had had five months time to file a reply to the respondent s said application, that the State had even then failed to file its reply, that he had, therefore, in the absence of such a reply, allowed the application and that in those circumstances he found no reason to recall his said first order.

2. The relevant facts necessary to understand the circumstances in which the two impugned orders were passed are as follows :

3. In 1946, the respondent was an employee in the then Imperial Bank of India at Allahabad. A first information report was lodged against him on August 9, 1946 whereupon the police commenced their investigation. On the completion of the investigation committal proceedings started before the City Magistrate. Those proceedings ended in 1949, the committing Magistrate ordering that the respondent should be tried by the Sessions Court at Allahabad under Secs. 408 and 477-A of the Penal Code. The respondent accordingly was tried by the Sessions Judge with the aid of jury in 1950 and was acquitted. On an appeal filed by the State, the High Court, by its judgment dated August 12, 1953, set aside the order of acquittal and convicted the respondent under Secs. 408 and 477A of the Penal Code and imposed the sentence of four years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 10,000, out of which Rs. 7,000 were directed to be paid to the Imperial Bank as compensation.

4. The respondent thereupon, filed an appeal in this Court against the said order of conviction and sentence. In the appeal, he took up mainly two grounds; (1) that the memorandum of appeal filed by the State in the High Court was not a valid memorandum under Sec. 419 of the Code of Civil Procedure inasmuch as no grounds against his acquittal were therein set out except a general plea that the acquittal was against the weight of evidence and contrary to law, and (2) that although the entire trial turned on the question as to who was the author of the documents alleged to have been forged and the said documents were all in the English language, it was found as a fact that out of the five jurors, three only had sufficient knowledge of that language, while the fourth knew very little of it and could not read the documents produced in the case, and the fifth also had no sufficient knowledge of English as he could understand letters written in English with some difficulty but could not read English newspapers. By a judgment dated October 14, 1957 (reported in Kapil Deo Shukla v. State of U. P., 1968 SCR 640 this Court held that the trial before the Sessions Judge was coram non judice on account of the incompetence of the jury to decide the question as to the authorship of the forged documents, that it therefore was a "mis-trial." and allowed the appeal setting aside the High Court s order of conviction and sentence. In doing so this Court observed at page 647 of the report as follows :

"It is unfortunate that a prosecution which has been pending so long in respect of an offence which is said to have been committed about eleven years ago should end like this. But it will