Examination of witnesses not named in the charge sheet by prosecution.

The accused in C.C. No. 12350 of 1955 on the file of the IV Presidency Magistrate is the petitioner herein. The circumstances under which this Criminal Revision Petition is filed are these:-

On 1st December, 1955 the City Police filed a charge-sheet against the petitioner that is, the accused in the above case for an offence under section 420, Indian Penal Code. The accused appeared on 12th March, 1956. The case was adjourned to 17th March, 1956 for furnishing to the accused copies of documents referred to in section 173(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code. No documents were furnished on the 17th and so the case was adjourned to 20th March, 1956 when copies of certain documents alone were made available to the accused. On the 20th after hearing the prosecution and the counsel for the accused a charge was framed for an offence under section 420, Indian Penal Code without examination of any of the witnesses cited in the charge-sheet. The accused pleaded not guilty to the charge and then the case stood adjourned to 3rd April, 1956 for examining witnesses on the prosecution side. In the charge-sheet only four witnesses were examined. They were (1) Parmar; (2) Chandra; (3) Rajagargh and (4) Venugopal. On 3rd April, 1956, P.W. 1 (that is, the first mentioned witness in the charge-sheet) the complainant in the case was present, but as he did not know any language other than Gujarathi, the case was adjourned to 4th April, 1956, for getting a Gujarathi translator. On 4th April, 1956 with the assistance of the Gujarathi interpreter of the High Court, P.W. 1 was examined and Exhibits P-1 to P-17 were marked. On the the same day Rajagargh, the third mentioned witness in the charge-sheet was given up by the prosecution and an additional list of witnesses was filed for whom the Magistrate directed issue of summons. The case then stood adjourned to 17th April, 1956. On 17th April, 1956, as no witness turned up, fresh summons were ordered to all the witnesses except to N.C. Chandra the second mentioned witness in the charge-sheet. He was directed to be examined on commission. The case was again adjourned to 27th April, 1956. This Court in Crl.R.C. No. 466 of 1956 quashed the order of the Magistrate directing the examination of Chandra on commission, for the reasons mentioned therein. The case underwent several adjournments and stood finally posted to 10th May, 1956 for examination of witnesses mentioned in the additional list filed on 4th April, 1956. The names of witnesses mentioned in the additional list and who were sought to be examined were Jadawla, Mathurdoss, Thakore and Narayan Nair. Among these additional witnesses to be examined the first mentioned witness, Jadawla was given up. The second mentioned person Mathurdoss was examined as P.W. 2 on 10th May, 1956 and Exhibits P-18 to P-23 were marked. The case was then adjourned to 23rd May, 1956 when the third and the fourth witnesses mentioned in the list, Thakore and Narayan Nair were examined as P.Ws. 3 and 4 and Exhibits P-24 to P-31 were marked. On the same day, that is, on 23rd May, 1956 the prosecution filed another list of witnesses and asked that summons should be issued to them. The witnesses sought to be summoned are Narayan Rao and Chittibabu. The accused raised an objection to the examination of these additional witnesses but his objection was overruled and it is against this order of the lower Court rejecting the objection of the accused to the examination of the additional witnesses whose names were furnished on 20th March, 1956, that the present revision case has been filed. It is alleged and conceded by the prosecution that these two witnesses, viz., Narayana Rao and Chitti Babu were not examined by the police during the investigation and that, therefore, no statements were recorded from them under section 161(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

So far as P.Ws. 1 to 4 are concerned, it is alleged that copies of statements of P.Ws. 1 to 3 recorded under section 162 of the