This is an appeal against the conviction of the appellant by the Additional Sessions Judge of Coimbatore in S.C. No. 61 of 1957. In S.C. No. 220 of 1956, eight accused were tried for the murder of one Kolandaiappa Goundan. The appellant herein was one of the persons implicated in that case ; he gave a confessional statement, Exhibit P-2. This induced the prosecution to tender pardon to him and take him as an approver. But, in the committal Court, when he was put in the witness-box, he retracted from the confessional statement, Exhibit P-2, and turned hostile to the prosecution. Thereafter, he was not examined in the Sessions Court as a witness. The trial of the accuseed went on with the other witnesses, and finally resulted in the acquittal of the accused by this Court.

After the disposal of S.C. No. 220 of 1956 on 4th February, 1957, the Public Prosecutor, Coimbatore, gave a certificate under section 339, Criminal Procedure Code, Exhibit P-30, dated 10th March, 1957. It says that this accused who accepted the conditions of pardon tendered to him by the learned District Magistrate, Coimbatore, did not comply with the conditions and that this was a deliberate and wilful condu