Govinda Menon, J.-The petitioner seeks permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgment of this Court in Crl.R.C.No. 566 of 19501 under Article 134 (1) (c) of the Constitution of India, which is in the following terms:

“An appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court from any judgment or final order or sentence in a criminal proceeding of a High Court in the territory of India, if the High Court certified that the case is a fit one for appeal to the Supreme Court.”

The words of this article are analogous to the provisions of section 109 (c), Civil Procedure Code, which says that an appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court from any decree or order if the case is certified as a fit one for appeal to the Supreme Court. Since Article 134 (c) has come into force only about a year ago, our attention has been invited only to one or two cases dealing with the interpretation of Article 134 (1) (c), but various cases on the applicability or the interpretation of section 109(c), Civil Procedure Code, have been brought to our notice and in the absence of any positive authority we should be guided by what the previous decisions have laid down regarding the criterion to be adopted in granting leave. Our judgment in Crl.R.C.No. 566 of 1950 is based on a construction of section 145(4), Criminal Procedure Code, on which there had been sharp divergence of judicial opinion. In this Court three learned Judges, Wallace, Devadoss and Lakshmana Rao, JJ., have taken one view, whereas two others, namely, Jackson and Happell, JJ., have taken a contrary view. The view taken by the latter Judges has been shared by the Lucknow and Allahabad High Courts as well. In this state of conflicting authority we had to choose between two divergent opinions and we preferred to accept the principles of the decisions of Wallace, Devadoss and Lakshmana Rao, JJ., on the construction of this section. The question is, whether the proposition of law is of such an importance that leave should be granted? It has to be premised that the order made by a Criminal Court under section 145, Criminal Procedure Code, is subject to the result of a Civil Suit and therefore, Criminal Court’s decision is only of a temporary nature.

In interpreting section 109 (c), Civil Procedure Code, in Ramanathan Chetti v. Audinatha Aiyangar1, Venkatasubba Rao and Madhavan Nair, JJ., have laid down that the existence of a question of law of some difficulty is not a sufficient ground for certifying the case to be a fit one for appeal to the Privy Council, unless it is of general and public importance. The learned Judge, Madhavan Nair, J., discussed a large body of case law and came to that conclusion. Is there a question of law of some difficulty and sufficient importance in this case? Probably it might be stated that the question we have to decide is of some importance because of the construction of section 145 (4), Criminal Procedure Code; but we do not feel that it is a matter of any great difficulty.

In interpreting Article 136 of the Constitution, which lays down that the Supreme Court can grant special leave in criminal cases, their Lordships of the Supreme Court had to consider when and under what conditions leave should be granted and they held that the only standard which can be laid down, in the circumstances, is that the Court should grant special leave to appeal only in those cases where special circumstances are shown to exist. Generally speaking the Supreme Court will not grant special leave unless it is shown that exceptional circumstances exist and that severe and grave injustice has been done and that the case in question presents features of sufficient gravity to warrant a review of the decision appealed against. In our opinion these principles are to be followed in deciding whether leave should be granted under Article 134 (1) (c) also.

The High Court of Orissa in Arjun Misra v. Indian Union2 (Ray, C.J. and Narasimham, J.) had also to consider the pre-requisites for the grant of leav

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