Present: Wood Renton J.    June.13,1911

THE KING v. AMADORU et al.

78 and 79-D. C. (Crim.), Tangalla, 721,

Criminal Procedure Code, s. 440-Evidence found to be false on the balance of conflicting evidence-False evidence disclosing serious criminal charge-Summary punishment.

Semble, there is nothing in section 440 of the Criminal Procedure Code which prevents a Court from adopting the summary method provided by that section for punishing a witness for giving false evidence, even in cases where the false evidence charged disclosed a serious criminal offence, or where the Judge arrived at his conclusion that perjury had been committed on the balance of conflicting evidence.

All that section 440 requires is that the accused persons should have given evidence in a judicial proceeding, which, in the opinion of the Court before which that proceeding is held, is false.

THE facts appear from the judgment.

Samarawickreme, for the accused, appellants.

Walter Pereira, K.C., S.-G., for the Crown.

June 13, 19.11. Wood Renton J.-

In this case there are two appellants, of whom the first was the complainant and the second a witness, in the prosecution of a Station House Officer in the District Court of Tangalla on charges of hurt under section 314 and extortion under section 373 of the Penal Code. The learned District Judge heard the evidence of the complainant, of the witness-appellant and of another witness. He then came to the conclusion that the charges against the Station House Officer were false, and acquitted him at once, giving his reasons for doing so. Thereafter he proceeded to charge the two appellants with perjury under section 440 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and sentenced each of them to pay a fine of Rs. 50, or in default to undergo two months' rigorous imprisonment. The present appeals are brought against these convictions, and several points of interest have been argued in support of them. 1 will deal first with the point that Mr. Samara wickreme, the appellants' counsel, argued last. His contention was that there was nothing on the face of the record here which shows that the statements, alleged by the District Judge to amount

to perjury, were false in fact. He took each part of these statements clause by clause, and said that as regards each clause there was no inherent improbability in what the complainant in the one case and the witness in the other had said. I do not think that this is the right way to approach section 440 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It must be noted that all that the section itself requires is that the accused persons should have given evidence in a judicial proceeding, which, in the opinion of the Court before which that proceeding is held, is false. There is no doubt but that, in the opinion of the learned District Judge, the whole incriminating evidence against the Station House Officer given by both appellants was false. He has said so expressly in his judgment, and has emphasized his disbelief in the story by a perhaps unnecessarily reiterated insistence on its falsehood. That being so, I have to ask myself in appeal whether there is anything on the face of the record to show that the Judge's disbelief of these two witnesses in the story that they gave as to the circumstances preceding their arrest is against the weight of the evidence. I am clearly of opinion that there is not, and when I turn to the evidence given by the complainant at the close of the trial, when he was recalled, I can see sufficient grounds for what the District Judge has said as to the unreliability of his story. The point made on behalf of the appellants on the facts must fail. I need only say further that neither of the witnesses when called upon to show cause against his conviction, and confronted, as the learned District Judge most properly confronted them, with those parts of the evidence which he specifically alleged to be untrue, either