JUDGMENT

Maclean, C.J. - I have had the advantage in this case of reading the judgment of Mr. Justice Banerjee, and of discussing it fully with him, and he has stated so fully the charges against the present accused, the history of the trial, the result of that trial, the circumstances under which the present appeal has been presented, and the only conditions under which having regard to those circumstances, this Court can interfere, that 1 feel it is unnecessary for me to recapitulate what he had said on those several points. He has also set out in marked detail the various heads of misdirection upon which the Appellants rely, and do not propose, nor do 1 think it necessary, that I should re-state these in my own judgment. In respect to what 1 may call the question of oral misdirection, as opposed to the question of misdirection, in the refusal to admit the statements of the three accused, which were so often referred to during the course of the argument, I concur in the views which Mr. Justice Banerjee is about to express and subject to one or two observations, which I am about to make, I do not think that I can usefully add anything to what he has said.

2. I desire, however, to point rut one difficulty in which this Court is placed in dealing with questions of oral misdirection by the Sessions Judge in the course of his charge to the jury, and it is this :--We have not unfortunately before us, the precise language he used in his charge. We do not know what his words actually were; all we have before us is what is styled "Heads of charge to the jury"--I need scarcely point that the actual language used to the jury might be different from that contained in the " heads of charge," and that even a slight variation in the language used might place quite another aspect upon the meaning of the charge. I think then as I said before that we approach the question of any oral misdirection under some difficulty : but if we are to take the language in the heads of charge as representing the ipsissima verba used by the Sessions Judge--as I suppose we must--the only head of oral misdirection upon which I have felt some little doubt is the second. I do not propose to say anything about the others, because I think that all that need be said about them has been said about them in my colleague's judgment, except that I cannot but feel that the arguments of the Crown rest upon a somewhat too minute criticism of the Judge's language, and that, locking at the charge as a whole, I do not think there has been any misdirection on those points.

3. As regards the second head, I feel that it was at least unfortunate that the Sessions Judge should have used the expression "if you think these three Hindus were no better than accomplices of the present accused and others, their evidence cannot be accepted as satisfactory unless it is corroborated in material particulars." But adopting the reasons given by my learned colleague, and especially, having regard to some of the other remarks of the Sessions Judge, upon the evidence given by these witnesses, though I feel it would have been better if he had been more specific in his direction to the jury on this point, and though the case is one very near the line, I am of opinion looking at the charge as a whole that he has, in effect, indicated to the jury pretty plainly that there was no real ground for regarding these witnesses as accomplices, and I scarcely think we should be justified in holding that there has been a misdirection on this head within the meaning of sec. 423 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This disposes then of what I have called the various oral misdirections upon which the Appellants rely.

4. I now pass to the question of whether the three statements made by the three accused which are to be found at pages 36 and 37 of the Paper-book, were or were not admissible in evidence against them.

5. As appears from the order-sheet, the Sessions Judge held those statements to be inadmissible, but it i