The High Court has the inherent jurisdiction to set aside a judgment and order a re-hearing when the judgment was delivered without giving the appellant or his pleader a reasonable opportunity to be heard.

1. This is an application under Sec. 561A, Code of Criminal Procedure, for re-hearing of Criminal Appeal No. 202 of 1960. This appeal was preferred from jail by the appellant Ramballabh Jha who was convicted under Sec.302, Indian Penal Code, and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. The appeal was listed for final hearing and it was disposed of by this Court on the 11th of January, 1962. The appeal was dismissed. Thereafter, on the 14th of February, 1962, the present application was filed by the learned advocate Mr. Mahendra Kant Choudhary stating that he had filed Vakalatnama on behalf of the appellant long before the case was put up on the daily list, but through inadvertence somewhere in the office his name did not appear as counsel for the appellant on the daily list. The result of this was that he had no information of this appeal having been listed for hearing and accordingly, it was decided without his being heard by the Bench, treating it to be a jail appeal as it was originally tiled. His grievance is that his failure to appear in the appeal on behalf of the appellant was not due to any laches or negligence on his part but on account of the error on the part of the office of the High Court, because, according to the settled practice, when the daily list is printed showing the number of the case, the name or names of the parties and those of the counsel, every member of the Bar engaged relies upon the daily list for in-formation as to whether the particular case in which he has been engaged has been put up in the list or not. In the circumstances, therefore, it should be held that judgment has been delivered in this appeal by the Bench without giving him the reasonable opportunity to argue the appellants case, and the appellant is entitled to a re-hearing.

2. In this connection, Mr. Raghunath Jha appearing in support of the application for re-hearing has drawn our attention to Sections 369, 421 and 561A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (the three relevant sections) for decision of the point raised in this petition. Sec.369 provides, in so far as it is relevant, that no Court when it has sighed its judgment shall alter or review the same except or correct a clerical error. He concedes that if Sec.369 were to be read in isolation, the language being mandatory and comprehensive, it would not be open to any Criminal Court including the High Court to alter or review the judgment once it has been pronounced and signed. But his main contention is that this, however, is subject to the provisions of Sec. 421 of the Code, sub-section (1) of which runs thus:

"On receiving the petition and copy under Sec. 419 or Sec. 420, the Appellate Court shall peruse the same, and, if it considers that there is no sufficient ground for interfering, it may dismiss the appeal summarily: Provided that no appeal presented under Sec. 419 shall be dismissed unless the appellant or his pleader has had a reasonable opportunity of being heard in support of the same".

So, far as Sec. 561A is concerned, it is a general section providing for the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to make such orders as may be necessary to give effect to any order under the Code or to prevent abuse of the process of any Court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice.

Mr. Jha has urged accordingly that in order to invoke the finality and unalterability attaching to Sec.369 of the Code, the judgment must be one which complies with the requirement of the proviso to Sec. 421 of the Code, i.e., no appeal presented to the Court under Sec. 419 shall be dismissed without reasonable opportunity being given to the appellant or his pleader of being heard in support of the case. This is a matter of procedure, the exact application of which to the facts of a particular case will depend on its own context. The sine qua non however, of the proviso is that before an appeal is disposed of, the appellant or his pleader must be given a reasonable opportunity to