The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for corroboration of accomplice's evidence and the need for proof beyond reasonable doubt in criminal cases.

Sen, J—Balkrishna Murlidhar Hadap was convicted under Section 161, Penal Code, and sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 500 by the Special Tribunal, Amraoti, in criminal Case No. 11 of 1945 on 8-10-1945,. Pending the filing of an appeal, he was released on bail on that date by the Tribunal under Section 426(2a), Criminal P.C. He filed an appeal in this Court on 17-10-1945 to set aside his conviction and sentence and he was allowed to remain on bail by Hemeon, J.

2. The Special Tribunal, Amraoti, was constituted under the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance, 1943 (29 [xxix] of 1948), and the trial of the appellant was held in accordance with the provisions thereof. Under Section 7 of the Ordinance, as originally promulgated no appeal lay against any sentence of a Tribunal. The section was amended and a new section was substituted by the Criminal Law (1948-Amendment) Second Amending Ordinance, 1945 (22 [xxii] of 1945) which was published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, on 4-7-1945. The complaint against the appellant was filed on 30-7-1945. Under the section asamended an appeal to this Court was competent-because the offence was alleged to have taken place at Tumsar Road within the local limits of the jurisdiction of this Court.

3. Balkrishna Murlidhar Hadap was a goods clerk at the Tumsar Road Railway Station, B.N. Ry., in February 1945, and had put in 38 years service and was to retire after three months. Under Section 137(1), Railways Act, 1890, every railway servant is deemed to be a public servant for the purposes of chap. IX, Penal Code. The appellant was thus a public servant for the purposes mentioned in that chapter.

The charge against the appellant was that on or about 28-2-1945, at Tumsar Road Goods Shed platform, he accepted Rs. 171 as a gratification other than legal remuneration from Ganpat Pandurang Teli as a reward for doing official acts and committed an offence punishable under Section 161, Penal Code;

4. In Ground No. 1 of the memorandum of appeal the appellant urged that prior sanction of the Governor-General in Council was necessary for his prosecution, that for want of such sanction the trial was vitiated and that consequently his conviction was illegal. This contention was not pressed by Dr. Kedar, the learned Counsel for the appellant. The contention has no force and is concluded by two decisions of the Federal Court in Hori Ram v. Emperor and H.T. Huntley v. Emperor

The observations in the latter case at pages 268 and 269 may be quoted as decisive of the contention raised:

Section 270(1) of the Constitution Act relates to proceedings instituted against a person in respect of any act done or purporting to be done in the execution of his duty as a servant of the Crown.

5. In Hori Ram v. Emperor this Court laid down that to attract the provisions of this section it was not sufficient merely to establish that the person proceeded against was a public servant and that while acting as a public servant, or taking advantage of his position as a public servant, he did certain act; it must be established that the act complained of was an official act. In this case the act complained of was the act of receiving illegal gratification. That surely could not be an act done or purporting to be done in the execution of duty.

6. On page 179, of (1939) P.C.R., Sulaiman, J. observed:

For instance, if a public servant accepts as a reward a bribe in his office while actually engaged in his official work, he is not accepting it even in his official capacity, much less in the execution of any official duty, although it is quite certain that he could never have been able to take the bribe unless he were the official in charge of some official work. He does not even pretend to the person who offers the bribe that he is acting in the discharge of his official duty, but merely uses his official position to obtain the illegal gratification.

7. The sanction of the Governor-General under Section 270(1) o