JUDGMENT

Braund, J. - This is an appeal by an appellant, Taskhir Ahmad, who in 1943 was., the head moharrir of the police station at a place called Nahtaur. This man has been convicted of the offence of giving false evidence in a judicial proceeding and has been sentenced to a nominal term of imprisonment and to suffer a fine as well. In my opinion, without reference to the merits of the case, the appellant succeeds on a technical point. The facts for this purpose can be briefly stated. The appellant was the head moharrir of the police station, and to him came a certain person to lodge a complaint against some seventeen persons who were alleged to have committed serious offences, one of which was murder. The appellant took down the first information report and he also made the routine entries in what is known as the general diary. Among the seventeen persons who were implicated by this first information report was a certain Raj Kumar. What the appellant is said to have done is both in the first information report and the general diary, to have added the name of Raj Bahadur-the brother of Raj Kumar-as a person informed against, and moreover to have done this after, and by way of addition to, the original first information report and the original diary entries, after they had been completed in the first instance. He was, moreover, charged with having done this intentionally for the purpose of involving an innocent man, Raj Bahadur, in a capital offence. In due course, the case which followed this first information report was tried by the learned Sessions Judge of Bijnor in sessions trial No. 21 of 1913, and in the course of this trial the first information report and the general diary relevant to the case had to be referred to. The entries in these documents relating to Raj Bahadur were no doubt challenged in defence on his behalf and, during the course of the trial, the present appellant was cross-examined as to how the name of Raj Bahadur found its way into the first information report and the general diary. In cross-examination the appellant is said to have given answers to the effect that Raj Bahadur's name was interpolated in the first information report before it was signed and that accordingly, as between the appellant and the informant, there was no question of its having been dishonestly added.

2. After the conclusion of the sessions trial, the learned Sessions Judge considered u/s 476, Criminal P.C. whether any steps ought to be taken against the appellant as a result of what he was alleged to have done in respect of the first information report and the general diary and in respect of what he had said in Court in cross-examination. In the result the learned Sessions Judge made a complaint, dated 30th November 1943 in accordance with Section 476, Criminal P.C. The complaint itself is a long document which consists of a recital of the events and of the suspicions in the mind of the learned Sessions Judge, first that the appellant had deliberately tampered with, and altered, the first information report by including Raj Bahadur's name in it subsequently to its having been lodged in the police station; secondly that the appellant had tampered with the general diary by adding the name of Raj Bahadur to it so as to correspond with his manipulation Of the first information report; and thirdly that he had deposed falsely in his answers given in cross-examination. Having come to this concision, the learned Sessions Judge proceeded to say that:

In the interest of justice it is expedient that the accused should be tried for the aforesaid offences complaint under Sections 218 and 194, Penal Code, is hereby moved against him. The Government pleader may be deputed to conduct the case....

3. As a result of this complaint, the appellant was tried in May 1944 by the learned Sessions Judge of Moradabad. In that trial the learned Judge acquitted the appellant both of the charge u/s 194 and of the charge u/s 218, Penal Code, but he convicted