Mistakes or omissions in the judgment requiring judicial consideration or determination of the legal or factual aspect of the case cannot be construed as clerical errors.

JUDGMENT :

S. Acharya, J. - This application, in effect, is for the correction of an error in the judgment passed by Narasimham C.J. (as be then was) in Criminal Revision No. 173 of 1964. As per the judgment of the Court below, the first four Plaintiffs in the said revision and the Plaintiff now before us, being the sixth Plaintiff therein, were convicted u/s 323, Indian Penal Code while Plaintiff No. 5 was convicted u/s 324, Indian Penal Code. But Narasimham, C.J. in the very first sentence of his judgment stated as follows:

The first four Plaintiffs were convicted u/s 323, Indian Penal Code and Plaintiff No. 5 was convicted u/s 324, Indian Penal Code by the S.D.M. (Judicial), Chatrapur and sentenced to one month's R.I. for the offence u/s 323, Indian Penal Code and two months R.I. for the offence u/s 324, Indian Penal Code and their appeal was dismissed by the learned Sessions Judge.

2. It is contended on behalf of the Plaintiff that the learned Chief Justice in summarising the conviction and sentence of the Plaintiffs before him, as above, missed, by an accidental Blip, to mention about the Plaintiff as one of the persons convicted u/s 323, Indian Penal Code along with the four others mentioned therein as so convicted. We find that there is absolutely no mention about the case of this Plaintiff anywhere in the aforesaid judgment, though he was also a Plaintiff convicted along with Plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 4 u/s 323, Indian Penal Code and sentenced to the same period of imprisonment with them. If the learned Judge intended not to interfere with the Plaintiff's case in any manner whatsoever, he would certainly have mentioned his reasons for the same. The judgment proceeded solely on the question of modification of the sentence passed against the Plaintiffs without any discussion on any other aspect of the case. Thus it becomes evident that the omission to deal with the Plaintiff's case was due to the error which crept unnoticed into the above quoted summation, made in the very first sentence of the judgment.

3. The learned Additional Standing Counsel for the State contends that such a mistake cannot be construed to be a clerical error, and as such there is no scope for its correction, specially on this application u/s 561-A, Code of Criminal Procedure, as the Court, soon after pronouncing its judgment, becomes functus officio for all intents and purposes, and has no power to alter or review the same except to correct clerical errors therein as provided for u/s 369, Code of Criminal Procedure.

4. On meticulous consideration we are of the opinion that non-consideration of the Plaintiff's case in the judgment of Narasimham, C. J. was merely an accidental slip only because he proceeded all through on the mistaken basis that only four of the six Plaintiffs stood convicted u/s 323, Indian Penal Code, which mistake certainly was an inadvertent one, and stealthily slipped into the very first sentence of his judgment. Correcting the judgment by filling up such an obvious omission due to an accidental slip, and making necessary and consequential changes in the operative portion of the same would not in any manner whatsoever demand a fresh judicial consideration or determination of the matter, and as such the said omission would clearly come within the scope of the term 'clerical error' mentioned in Section 369, Code of Criminal Procedure. It should however be stated that mistakes or omissions in the judgment requiring judicial consideration or determination of the legal or factual aspect of the case can never be construed as clerical errors. The omission in this case being purely a clerical one, in the interest of justice such a clerical error in the judgment can and should be corrected under the provisions of Section 369, Code of Criminal Procedure. The question of invoking the aid of Section 561-A, Code of Criminal Procedure would not arise in such a case.

5. We accordingly direct that in the judgment passed by Narasimham, C.J. in Criminal Rev