Scope of the provisions of Article 134.

Panchapakesa Ayyar. J.-This is a petition filed by accused 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 in S.C. No. 60 of 1949 on the file of the Sessions Court, Guntur, for a certificate under Article 134(1)(c) of the Constitution of India, that our decision in R.T. No. 47 of 1950 and Criminal Appeal Nos. 139, 140, 141 and 183 of 1950 confirming their convictions under section 147, Indian Penal Code and sections 325 and 149, Indian Penal Code, for rioting and three counts of constructive grievous hurt caused to three persons during the rioting, while setting aside the convictions of some of them for murder, and actual grievous hurt, rioting armed with deadly weapons, and rioting, is a fit one for appeal to the Supreme Court. As no conditions under Article 134(1)(c) have been framed by this High Court, or provisions by the Supreme Court regarding this matter under Article 145, clause (1), referred to in Article 134(1)(c), and as no ruling of the Supreme Court interpreting Article 134(1)(c) has been reported so far, we have to decide this petition on merits, on the facts.

We have heard Mr. Jayarama Aiyar for the petitioners. His main argument is that though this is a case where we have agreed with the finding of the lower Court regarding the partaking of these petitioners in the offence of rioting with the common unlawful object of causing grievous hurt and have only set aside the convictions for murder and the actual causing of grievous hurt, owing to our giving the convicted accused the benefit of the doubt, still the identification of these ten persons as having been among the rioters at that occurrence has not been satisfactorily made out, though it is a vital matter affecting the convictions. It was urged that in our judgment confirming the convictions of these ten petitioners under section 147, Indian Penal Code and under sections 325 and 149 on three counts we had relied mainly on Exhibit P-34 a report sent by accused 4 (acquitted by us) in his capacity as a village munsif, that Exhibit P-34 purports to be a complaint made to the village munsif by accused 9, one of the petitioners herein, and was not proved satisfactorily to be true, and that its contents were not also put clearly to these petitioners in the lower Court, in order to enable them to explain or deny their presence at the rioting therein, the report itself purporting to be a complaint in the counter case and naming these ten petitioners as merely witnesses to the rioting and not as participants in it.

All this argument is based on a misconception about our judgment. We did not rely on Exhibit P-34 for convicting any of the petitioners of the offences of rioting and constructive grievous hurt, which we confirmed. We relied on the evidence of the prosecution witnesses alone for that. After believing that evidence, and holding it to be sufficient regarding the offences we confirmed, we held that it was not quite sufficient to bring home the murder charge to accused 6, 9, 15 and 16, who had been convicted under section 302, Indian Penal Code and sentenced to death, or the charges under sections 302 and 149, Indian Penal Code, to accused 1, 3, 4, and 10, who had been convicted thereunder and sentenced to transportation for life, or the charges of individual acts of grievous hurt to accused 1,3, 4, 7, 11, 14, 16 and 18, regarding whom the prosecution evidence was not enough to sustain the convictions, and the benefit of the doubt had to be given to them under the law, as urged by Mr. Jayarama Aiyar himself in the course of his arguments before us in those cases. We referred to Exhibit P-34, as Mr. Jayarama Aiyar had argued before us, after his general argument about benefit of doubt regarding the individual acts, that, at the most, only accused 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 (these ten petitioners), admitted to have been present at the occurrence in Exhibit P-34, should be held to have taken part in the rioting that night and convicted under section 147, Indian