JUDGMENT

Walsh, J. - This is an exceptionally difficult matter to know what to do without I have come to a sort of rough conclusion which I think will conform to the procedure laid down by this Court in other cases, and possibly in the end be more satisfactory to both parties than the present state of things. One Uchhab Singh complained before" a Special Magistrate at Naini Tal that he had been slandeied by the accused Umed Singh by reason of a statement, made by Umed Singh to the effect that Uchhab Singh had suffered the penalty of being out casted by reason of his social relations with one I achhi who himself was an outcaste The matter had already assumed considerable proportions before it reached the Magistrate. Nothing else could account for the extremely elaborate judgment in which he has dealt with the matter, and although he describes it as a trifling matter (he is an Indian and ought to know better than I do, but I think that these caste questions in village communities are very far from being trifling matters) such an agitation was caused the 150 villages have been affected directly and hundred villages indirectly within a short time. It sounds more like the description of an incurable epidemic, and so serious has it become that marriage parties have been put under the ban. Yet says the Magistrate in his finding the allegation is false, and if that is so, it would seem to follow that the accused is a man of 'enormous influence, because it certainly is a startling thing that by the mere repetition of a false accusation which ought to be a le to be proved or disproved by the brotherhood without much difficulty, he has nonetheless been able to affect 100 villages. The mere fact that 100 villages are affected for good or for evil, confirms me in my view that it is really a public question. I can not help thinking that there is something out of the ordinary in this finding by the Magistrate. In the result, finding that the accused had uttered a false statement, which means of course false to his knowledge and if defamatory, one of the worst turns which one man can do to another in the same so city, the Magistrate sentenced him to the somewhat mild punishment of one month's simple imprisonment. The matter came before the learned Sessions Judge of Kumaon in revision. Dr. Katju upholding in Onesen sethe order of the learned Sessions Judge while at the same time he asks me to ignore it and to hold that it was made Without jurisdiction because his only jurisdiction was to refer the question to this Court, has argued that the learned Judge had no right to go behind a finding of facts. I cannot agree with that statement framed in. that bold way. In the ordinary course of things findings of fact a re accepted by a Revisional Court as binding upon it, but revision would be an idle farce if the Revisional. Court had not the power, which has been exercised hundred, possibly one thousand, times throughout the High Courts in India, to look into the evidence for itself and see if these findings can be justified by what appears upon the record. A Revisional Court does not decide the balance of credibility between two conflicting sets of witnesses or two conflicting issues of fact but it may be compelled to dissent from a finding of fact which is either perverse or has been arrived at contrary to well-established principles of law. In this case so far as the finding is concerned, it does not seem that the learned Judge was abundantly justified. He says that it seems that in January Uchhab Singh was out casted, and Tr. M.L. Agarwala for the applicants, has drawn my attention to a written panchayatnama signed by several of the brotherhood, by which the brotherhood decided that he was out-caste; and did it in January, whereas the statement complained of made by the accused, was not until March. But though the finding of fact by the Sessions Judge on this documentary evidence seems prima facie justified, it does not seem to have been arrived a