( 1 ) THE extra Additional Sessions Judge Surat acquitted the appellant of the charge of having murdered Bai Jamli but he convicted him under section 201 for having caused the evidence of her murder to disappear with the requisite intention and with the requisite knowledge.

( 2 ) THE prosecution case was that after the appellant was arrested he made a statement before the police and panchas that he would discover a scythe and blood-stained clothes which had been concealed in certain fields. According to the prosecution the scythe was the weapon used for the commission of the offence and the clothes were those of the accused. In view of this evidence the learned Sessions Judge convicted the appellant under section 201 I. P. C. although he had acquitted him under section 302 I. P. C. on the charge of having caused the murder of Bai Jamli.

( 3 ) IN our opinion the appeal must be allowed and the conviction must be set aside for the following reasons :the prosecution case is that the appellant had caused the scythe and blood-stained clothes belonging to the appellant to disappear. Section 201 I. P. C. speaks of a person who causes any evidence of the commission of an offence to disappear. When an offence is committed there may be evidence of various types: (1) Evidence to show that the offence had been committed (2) Evidence to show that the offence had been committed at a particular place (3) Evidence to show that the offence had been committed by a particular person or persons. When section 201 uses the expression whoever causes any evidence of the commission of that offence to disappear it refers to a person who causes the evidence of actual commission of the offence to disappear and not to person who causes the disappearance of evidence as to by whom the offence was committed. As observed by the Bombay High Court in A. I. R. 1921 Bombay 115 (Anverkhan Mahamadkhan v. Emperor):

( 4 ) THE expression any evidence of the commission of that offence clearly refers not to evidence in the extensive sense in which that word is used in the Indian Evidence Act but to evidence in its primary sense as meaning anything that is likely to make the crime evident such as the existence of a wounded corpse or of blood stains fabricated documents or similar material objects indicating that an offence had been committed.

( 5 ) IN A. I. R. 1934 Calcutta 144 (Nagendra Bhakta v. Emperor) it is held that if in a murder case the corpse of the deceased was removed by the accused from a certain house to the verandah of a mosque he cannot be held to have committed an offence under section 201 because the fact that the corpse was lying in the house was no evidence of the commission of the murder. It was also observed as follows :the offence that was committed in the present case was an offence of murder and the evidence that was caused to disappear was the fact that the corpse was lying at Sarats house. This fact namely that the corpse was lying at Sarats house and at no other place was no evidence of the commission of the offence of murder. It may be some evidence of where the offence was committed or who had committed it but it was no evidence of the fact that a murder had been committed. It is not impossible to conceive of the commission of an offence apart from where and when and by whom it was committed.

( 6 ) IN the instant case the discovery of the scythe and the blood-stained clothes of the accused would not therefore amount to an offence under sec. 201. The learned counsel for the Government has however referred to A. I. R. 1958 Punjab 183 (Chander Giani v. The State) where Tek Chand J. disagreed with the view of Sharif J. in 48 Cri. L. J. 786 and agreed with the view expressed by Teja Singh J. in that case. In that case Teja Singh J. observed as follows :there cannot be the slightest doubt that the weapon with which an offence is committed is a very valuable piece of evidence of its commission. More so when the offence is said to be of