Judgement

Appeal (No. 98 of 1945), by special leave, from two judgments and orders of the High Court (Beckett and Marten JJ.) (June 7, 1945) which dismissed the appeals of the appellants and confirmed the sentences of death passed on them by the judgment and order of the Sessions judge, Amritsar (February 9, 1945).

The ground on which special leave to appeal was granted was the allegation that evidence that the appellants had committed a murder other than that with which they -were charged was wrongly admitted. That was the principal point argued on this appeal.

Law Rep. 73 Ind. App. 195 ( 1945- 1946)

Natha Singh V. King-Emperor 99

The facts appear from the judgment of the Judicial Committee.

1946. June 18. Pullan and Jayakar for the appellants. The main ground on which special leave to appeal was granted was the allegation that evidence of another crime has been used to secure the conviction of the appellants. The ostensible reason for admitting that evidence was that it showed that the present crime was committed for the purpose of concealing evidence of the former, which up till then was undetected. That is an unreasonable motive, and was not accepted by the High Court. Reliance is placed on the dictum of Lord Lore-burn in Rex v. Ball ([ 1911] A. C. 47, 71) that " Courts ought to be very careful "to preserve the time-honoured law of England, that you " cannot convict a man of one crime by proving that he had " committed some other crime/ The admission of the approvers evidence is not justified by ss. 8 or n of the Indian Evidence Act. [Reference was made to Parbhu Das v. Queen-Empress (( 1874) XI. Bom. H. C. R. 90.) and Rex v. Ellis ((1826) 6 B. & Cr. 145.).] A decision based on illegal procedure is itself a failure of justice N.

A. Subramania Iyer v. King-Emperor (( 1901) L. R. 28 I. A. 257.). Further, the medical evidence as to the time of death contradicted the evidence of alleged eye-witnesses, and the latter should have been disbelieved. If the Board consider that a conviction might be based on other evidence, it is open to them to review the evidence and, in particular, to take into account the discrepancy between the medical evidence and that of the alleged eye-witnesses. The admission at the trial of evidence relating to the murder of Bhan Singh in order to prove the murder of Karnail Singh is contrary to law. [Reference was made to the procedure adopted in Chainchal Singh v. King-Emperor (( 1945) L. R. 72

I. A. 270.).]

Megaw for the respondent, was not called upon.

July 17. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by SIR JOHN BEAUMONT. Their Lordships have already announced that they will humbly advise His Majesty that this appeal be dismissed, and they now give their reasons. The appellants were tried and convicted on a charge of having murdered one Karnail Singh on September 19, 1944. There were four alleged eye-witnesses of the murder, namely, the approver Qadir, who said that he had been with the appellants, Surain Singh, an uncle, Mt. Gurmej Kaur the wife, and Jita, a servant, of the murdered man. Karnail Singh had a brother, Bhan Singh, whose wife was said to have been in illicit intimacy with the appellant Natha Singh, and Karnail Singh is said to have objected to this intimacy. There seems no reason to doubt the existence of this intimacy, nor that it had occasioned ill-will between Karnail Singh and his brother on the one hand and Natha Singh on the other. The other appellant, Budha Singh, was a friend of Natha Singh.

On October 1, 1944, after the appellants had been arrested for the murder of Karnail Singh, a body without a head was found, and this was said to be the body of Bhan Singh. On the information of the approver, Qadir, the appellants were also charged with the murder of Bhan Singh. This charge was tried, with different assessors, immediately after the conclusion of the trial of the appellants for the murder of Karnail Singh, but before judgment in the latter trial had been delivered. Judgment