Syed Othman J:

The respondent in this appeal was charged for voluntarily causing hurt with a parang, an offence punishable under s. 324 of the Penal Code. At the conclusion of the trial he was acquitted. The public prosecutor is appealing against the acquittal.

The case for the prosecution in the trial was as follows: On the day in question the complainant and two friends were carrying durians. They stopped on the way as one of the friends went to wash his legs. Accused came to the spot with a boy. He struck the complainant with a parang. The injuries sustained by the complainant according to the evidence of the doctor were a laceration and an abrasion on the right elbow. As he was striking a second time a friend of the complainant pulled the accused away. The other friend then snatched the parang away from the accused. Complainant ran away from the spot and went to the Tepoh Police Station and lodged a report. After complainant had run away, the parang was returned to accused. According to the complainant he believed that accused was angry with him because about three months before the incident he had reported to the police when he found accused's eight buffaloes grazing on his vegetable plants.

On the above evidence adduced by the prosecution the learned Magistrate rightly called upon the accused to enter into his defence.

The accused's story was that the case against him was a frame-up. In crossexamination he said that the person who had snatched the parang away from him and who gave evidence for the prosecution had a grudge against him as that person owed him $8.80. On a question by the Court the accused said that he knew the ketua kampong of his place. The learned Magistrate then ordered the ketua kampong to give evidence. The trial was postponed for the purpose. The evidence of the ketua kampong supported the story that complainant's plants had been damaged by buffaloes but they belonged to accused's sister-in-law. According to him the accused had no buffaloes. There was then a settlement. The learned Magistrate then called a police constable attached to Tepoh Police Station. He gave evidence that the complainant had informed him that he had caught some buffaloes which were near the house and asked the constable what was to be done with them. The constable told him he could go to the police station and lodge a report. No report appeared to have been lodged.

On the evidence of the accused and the evidence of the Court witnesses the learned Magistrate found that the accused had thrown a reasonable doubt in the case for the prosecution and acquitted him but he does not indicate what was the part of the evidence as adduced by the accused or any of the Court witnesses which created the reasonable doubt in his mind as to the case for the prosecution.

No doubt s. 425 of the Criminal Procedure Code gives a wide power to the Court to summon and examine any person to give evidence but this power, as has been reiterated by many authorities which I need not cite here, must be exercised with the utmost caution and only when as set out in the provisions the evidence of that person appears to the Court essential to the just decision of the case. In a criminal trial at the close of a case of any party the Court should not call any witness unless there is strong and valid reason. In this case I cannot see any such reason existed. There was nothing in the evidence of the accused person which suggested to the Court that it would be in the interest of justice that the two witnesses should be called. Their evidence as far as I can see supported the complainant's story as to the reason for the incident and cannot in any way be said to have created any doubt as to the prosecution's case. The acquittal by the learned Magistrate was clearly against the weight of evidence.

I therefore set aside the order of acquittal of the learned Magistrate and substitute therefor an order of a finding of guilty against the accused person. In vie