ORDER :- Ranjha was convicted under Section 302, I. P. C., by the learned Sessions Judge, Mahasu on 21-4-1951 for the murder of one Durga and sentenced to death. On an appeal by him and submission of the proceedings by the Sessions Judge, his appeal was dismissed and the sentence of death was confirmed by this Court on 27-6-1951. Ranjha has now applied from jail for a certificate under Article 134(1)(c), Constitution of India, that the case is a fit one for appeal to the Supreme Court.

2. The application submitted from jail contains no ground but the learned counsel appearing for Ranjha has urged three points in support of the application, namely, (1) that this Court consisting as it does of only one Judge had not the power to confirm the sentence of death, (2) that the trial of the applicant in the sessions Court was prejudiced by Laldin having been produced as a prosecution witness and (3) that there was no proper compliance with the provisions of Section 342, Criminal Procedure Code, in the Sessions Court.

3. The argument put forward in support of the first point is as follows. Under Article 216 of the Constitution, which applies to the High Courts in Part A States, every High Court shall consist of more than one Judge. The Court of the Judicial Commissioner of Himachal Pradesh was established on and from the 15th of August, 1943, under the Himachal Pradesh (Courts) Order, 1948. Under Article 241(1) of the Constitution relating to Part C States, of which Himachal Pradesh is one, the Parliament may declare any Court in any such State to be a High Court for all or any of the purposes of the Constitution. The Parliament declared the Court of the Judicial Commissioner of Himachal Pradesh to be a High Court by the Judicial Commissioners Courts (Declaration as High Courts) Acts, 1950, which came into force on 26-1-1950. Under clause (2) of Article 241 the provisions of Chapter V of Part VI of the Constitution relating to High Courts in Part A States shall apply to this Court subject to such modifications and exceptions as the Parliament may by law provide. One of such exceptions and modifications made by the said Act of 1950 was that the provisions of Article 216 of the Constitution shall not apply to this Court, with the result that the Court of the Judicial Commissioner of Himachal Pradesh is a rightly constituted High Court even though consisting of only one Judge. It was argued by the learned counsel for the applicant that persons sentenced to death by Courts of sessions, and the confirmation of whose sentence of death is submitted to the Court of the Judicial Commissioner, have thereby been deprived of the right which they otherwise would have had under Section 377, Criminal Procedure Code, of the confirmation of the sentence being made and signed by at least two Judges. He further argued that this valuable right has been taken away from such persons under the said Act of 1950 without the procedure for amendment of the Constitution laid down in Article 368 being followed. According to him it was necessary to follow this procedure in passing the said 1950 Act because the word modification in Article 241(2) was tantamount to amendment. 4. There appear to me to be three obvious objections to the tenability of the above argument. Firstly, there is nothing to show that the procedure provided by Article 368 was not followed in passing the said 1950 Act. Secondly, it was a case of exception and not of modification since all that Section 6(a) of the 1950 Act laid down was that Article 216 shall not apply to this Court. Thirdly, the said exception under Section 6(a) of the 1950 Act was made under and by virtue of one of the provisions of the Constitution itself, namely, Article 241(2), and no part of the Constitution was thereby amended.

5. For reasons recorded above, it is mainfest that the first point urged by the learned counsel for the applicant as to this Court as a single Judge Court not having had the power to confirm the sentenc

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