The court emphasized the independence of acts in the offence under S.279 IPC and the desirability of separate trials to avoid prejudice, highlighting the power of the court to split up charges in cases of misjoinder.

1. This is an appeal by the State against the order of acquittal of the two accused persons in C. C. No. 1222 of 1962 on the file of the Sub-Magistrate, Kuthuparamba.

2. The charge against them was that accused No. 1, the driver of motor lorry No. MYV.1654 and accused No. 2 the driver of bus No. K.L.C. 1415 were driving their motor vehicles in opposite directions rashly and negligently and in a manner endangering human life collided with each other and caused hurt to a passenger in the bus and thereby committed the offences punishable under S.279 and 357 I. P. C.

3. A preliminary objection was taken to the legality of the joint trial of the two drivers. The learned Magistrate following the decisions in Umar Bin v. The State (AIR. 1954 Saurashtra 15) and Edward Top v. State (1953 KLT. 722) held the joint trial of the accused illegal and acquitted the accused under S.245 (1) Criminal Procedure Code.

4. The two points argued by the State in this appeal are: (i) that the accused could have been jointly triad for the offences and (ii) that in any view the order of acquittal is unsustainable and the court should have split up the charges against each accused and proceeded with the trial of the cases.

5. The stand taken by the prosecutor is that there is no legal bar to the joint trial of the two accused as the offences with which they stood charged were committed in the course of the same transaction coming under clause (a) of S.239 Criminal Procedure Code. In support of the position that the collision between the vehicles is to be taken as the transaction in the course of which the offences were committed, reliance was placed on the decision of the Madras High Court in Balliah v. Emperor (1931 Mad. Weekly Notes 556) which was referred to with approval in In re Vankayalapati (AIR. 1956 Andhra 21). As against this the learned defence counsel cited the decisions of the Travancore-Cochin High Court and the Saurashtra High Court relied upon by the learned Magistrate.

6. It has to be mentioned at the outset that whatever may be the relative merits of the conflicting views on the legality of a joint trial of the two accused for the offence under S.337 I. P. C., there should be no controversy at least about the impropriety of a joint trial for the offence under S.279 I. P. C. S.279 penalises rash and negligent driving or riding on a public way in a manner endangering human life or likely to cause hurt or injury to any one. Needless to say that such a rash and negligent act by one driver is independent of the rash and negligent driving of the other driver and as such these two acts cannot constitute the same transaction within the meaning of S.239(a) Criminal Procedure Code.

7. Coming to the charge under S.337 I. P. C., we are inclined to agree with the view taken in the Travancore-Cochin case that it is desirable that the accused should be charged separately. The circumstances under which two or more persons may be charged together are enumerated in S.239 of the Code and where it is doubtful whether a given case can be brought under its provisions it is preferable to deal with the offenders separately thereby avoiding the likelihood of any prejudice. The observations made by Mahamood J. In Queen Empress v. Abdul Kadir (ILR. 9 Allahabad 452) and extracted in the Travancore-Cochin case can well bear repetition as they enunciate the principal considerations which should prevail in dealing with such a question:

"Further it seems to me cleat upon general principles, that each individual member of the community is, in the absence of exceptional authority conferred by the law to the contrary effect, entitled, when required by the judiciary either to forfeit his liberty or to have that liberty qualified, to insist that his case shall be separately tried. In the eye of the law, each individual citizen is a separate integer or unit of the commonwealth, and his rights of liberty cannot, without express authority in the law, be dealt with jointly