These three petitions are preferred against an order passed by the Special First Class Magistrate, Madura, in C.C.Nos. 1, 2 and 3 of 1948 on his file.. The order in question was passed under section 540, Criminal Procedure Code, calling Mr.K.R. Venkatarama Aiyar to be examined in the case as a Court witness.

The petitioner is the second accused in the cases and the cases against him and another are for criminal breach of trust in respect of the moneys belonging to the Hindustan Bank of which the first accused was the agent and the petitioner herein, one of his constituents. A civil suit has been filed by the bank which is O.S.No. 65 of 1947 on the file of the Sub-Court, Dindigul, in which the petitioner and his father, the witness sought to be examined, have filed written statements. The suit also relates to the payment of moneys by the first accused to the second accused. The present prosecution is founded very much and is baxed upon the plaint allegations. The case of the prosecution appears to be that the first accused has dishonestly and fraudulently advanced large sums of money to the petitioner herein on securities which are either insufficient or which did not exist contrary to the directions given to the first accused. The charge sheet in the case has been filed after the written statements in the suit have been filed. The prosecution was, therefore, aware of what was contained in the written statement of Mr.Venkatarama Aiyar which was practically adopted by his son, the petitioner herein. After the examination of the prosecution witnesses charges were framed on 7th January, 1950 and when further cross-examination of the witnesses was going on, an application was filed by the prosecution on 6th September, 1950, to examine one Kadir Batcha as additional witness for the prosecution and on the same day, an application was made to examine Mr.K.R. Venkatarama Aiyar as a Court witness. Again on 9th September, 1950, another application was made to examine three more witnesses and all these four additional witnesses were examined between 25th September, 1950 to 30th September, 1950. The order deciding to call Mr. Venkatarama Aiyar as a Court witness was passed on 25th September, 1950. A copy of the application (called memo.) filed to examine Mr. Venkatarama Aiyar as a Court witness has been filed before me. It is stated therein that the prosecution feels that the statement of Mr. Venkatarama Aiyar is substantially true and yet as according to the prosecution it will not be admissible in evidence unless Mr. Venkatarama Aiyar goes into the box and files it and swears to the correctness of the facts mentioned therein, he should be called as a witness to prove the facts. In short, though according to the prosecution, the written statement is not evidence by itself, it must be rendered so by the examination of Sri Venkatarama Aiyar. Another point that is urged in the memo. is that a number of letters from and to Sri Venkatarama Aiyar have been marked as exhibits and that as the proper mode of proving them is by examining Sri Venkatarama Aiyar it prays that the Court may call for him to prove these exhibits. It may be stated at this stage that all these have been filed on the side of the defence. Paragraph 4 of the memo. states that the prosecution are hopelessly unable to take the responsibility of putting him into the box as a prosecution witness as he is the father of the petitioner and has been defending him in Court to some extent. This attempt on the part of the prosecution to get Mr. Venkatarama Aiyar examined as a Court witness was objected to by the petitioner and the lower Court in its order states that the reasons given by the special Public Prosecutor are convincing and there does not seem to be much substance in the objection raised by the second accused and ultimately the Magistrate finds that after going through the evidence of witnesses, he considers that the evidence of Mr. Venkatarama Aiyar is essential for