ION Criminal Appeal No 82 of 1957
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated the 12th August 1953 of the Allahabad High Court in Criminal Appeal No 114 of 1951 arising out of the judgment and order dated the 31st July 1950 of the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge at Allahabad in Criminal Sessions Trial No 22 of 1949
section P Sinha and B C Misra for the appellant
G C Mathur and C P Lal for the respondent
October 14
The following Judgment of the Court was delivered by SINHA J
This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment and order dated August 12 1953 of a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court Desai and Beg JJ setting aside the order of acquittal passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge at Allahabad dated July 31 1950 in Sessions Trial No 22 of 1949
The appellant bad been charged under sections 408 and 477A of the Indian Penal Code and tried by jury of 5
The jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty
The learned Additional Sessions Judge accepted the verdict of the jury and acquitted the accused
On appeal by the Government of Uttar Pradesh the High Court in a judgment covering about 130 typed pages set aside the order of acquittal and 642 convicted the appellant under the sections aforesaid and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for four years and a fine of ten thousand rupees in default of payment further rigorous imprisonment for one year under section 408 Indian Penal Code and to rigorous imprisonment for four years under section 477A Indian Penal Code the sentences of imprisonment under the two sections to run consecutively
Out of the fine if realized seven thousand rupees was directed to be paid to the Imperial Bank of India Allahabad as compensation
The prayer for a certificate of fitness for appeal to this Court was refused
The appellant moved this Court and obtained special leave to appeal by order dated December 15 1953
In the view we take of the legality of the trial in this case it is not necessary to go into the details of the prosecution case except to state that the appellant was charged under the sections aforesaid for having committed criminal breach of trust in respect of valuable securities amounting to Rs 7410 odd of the Imperial Bank at Allahabad while in the employment of the Bank as a clerk and had in that capacity  with intent to defraud destroyed altered mutilated and falsified accounts and other papers  during January to July 1946
A number of contentions were raised before us by the learned counsel for the appellants but it is necessary to notice only two of them namely 1 that the appeal by the State of Uttar Pradesh to the High Court should not have been entertained as the memorandum of appeal did not comply with the requirements of law as laid down in sections 418 and 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and 2 that the trial in the Sessions Court was no trial at all in the eye of law
In respect of the first contention it is enough to say that though the memorandum of appeal filed in the High Court was wholly inadequate the defect was not such as to render it null and void so as to entitle the High Court to reject it in liming
The point arises in this way Apart from the prayer the only ground taken in the petition of appeal is  that the order of acquittal is against the weight of evidence 643 on the record and contrary to law
 The argument is that under section 418 of the Criminal Procedure Code where a trial is by jury the appeal shall lie on a matter of law only  and as no particular error of law is set out in the memorandum of appeal the consequence of this serious omission it is further contended is that in the eye of law this was no petition of appeal at all which could have been entertained by the High Court
This contention was raised before the High Court by way of a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the appeal
The High Court overruled that objection on the ground that section 419 which is the specific provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure relating to petition of appeal only requires that it shall be in writing and accompanied by a copy of the judgment or order appealed against and in cases tried by jury a copy of the heads of the charge recorded under a 367 of the Code
The High Court observed that there is no provision in the Code which required that the petition of appeals should specify the matters of fact or of law on which the appeal is based
The Court also referred to the prevailing practice in that Court according to which no specific grounds are taken either on fact or on law
According to the High Court there was no difference between an appeal based on facts and an appeal based only on questions of law as in the case of a jury trial
In view of these considerations the High Court held that the preliminary objection was not well founded in law
Assuming that the High Court was correct in its appreciation of the legal position even so we must express our disapproval of any such practice as has been referred to in the judgment below
A memorandum of appeal is meant to be a succinct statement of the grounds upon which the appellant proposes to support the appeal
It is a notice to the Court that such and such specific grounds are proposed to be urged on behalf of the appellant as also a notice to the respondent that he should be ready to meet those specific grounds
A memorandum of appeal with a bald ground like the one quoted above is of no help to any of the parties or to the Court
It may have the 644 merit of relieving the person responsible for drawing up the ground of appeal of applying his mind to the judgment under appeal and its weak points but this slight advantage if it is so is very much out weighed by the serious disadvantage to the parties to the litigation and the Court which is to hear the appeal
Such a bald statement of the grounds leaves the door wide open for all kinds of submissions thus tending to waste the time of the Court and taking the respondents by surprise
It is a notorious fact that courts particularly in the part of the country from where this appeal comes are over burdened with large accumu lations of undisposed of cases
The parties concerned and their legal advisers should concentrate and focus their attention on the essential features of cases so as to facilitate speedy and consequently cheap administration of justice
It may be that a bald ground like the one noticed above was responsible for the inordinately long judgment of the High Court
Such a practice if any deserves to be discontinued and a more efficient way of drawing up grounds of appeal has to be developed
If counsel for the parties to a litigation concentrate on the essential features of a case eliminating all redundancies the argument becomes more intelligible and helpful to the Court in focussing its attention on the important aspects of the case
As the appeal succeeds on the second ground as will presently appear we need not say anything more on the first ground
The second ground on which in our opinion the appeal must succeed is based on the findings of the High Court itself This case involved a consideration of a large volume of documentary evidence almost all in English
The oral evidence was directed mainly to connect those documents and to explain their bearing on the charges framed against the accused of criminal breach of trust and falsification of relevant accounts and entries in the registers maintained by the Bank
Mr Ganguli prosecution witness No 26 Agent of the Bank was examined at great length and be gave his evidence on 12 days between October and December 1949 It runs into about 45 typed pages
This 645 evidence appears to have been given by him in English because he put in an application that he had given the evidence in English and that he was not in a position to say whether the Hindi version as recorded by the deposition writer was the correct version as he was not familiar with Hindi
The High Court had made the following observations as to the nature of the case and the requisite qualifications of the members of the jury necessary for a proper under
standing of the case  We consider that the instant case was not fit to be tried by a jury at least by any ordinary jury
It was a very complicated case in which a mass of documents was produced
The decision of the case rested upon the question by whom the various documents were written or prepared
Those documents are all in English and nobody could decide the case satisfactorily unless he had a good knowledge of English and was in a position to judge the writing
The offences with which the respondent was charged were under a Government order triable by a jury and the case had to be tried by a jury unless the Government thought fit to revoke or alter the order
The Government did not revoke or alter the order and did not even declare that the case should be tried by a special jury under section 2692 Criminal Procedure Code
 In our opinion the remarks of the High Court quoted above give a correct impression of the proceedings in the Court of Session
It further appears from the judgment of the High Court that the learned Advocate General who argued the case in support of the appeal on behalf of the State urged that the jurors were not equal to the task involved in a proper determination of the controversy
The High Court directed the trial court to hold an inquiry and report on this aspect of the case
On a consideration of the report submitted by that court the High Court recorded its finding to the following effect Out of the five jurors selected by the learned Sessions Judge three had sufficient knowledge of English fourth knew very little English and could not 646 read the documents produced in the case and the fifth also had not sufficient knowledge of English he could understand a letter written in English with some difficulty and could not read English newspapers
This is what we find from a report made by the learned Sessions Judge after summoning the jurors and examining them on a letter issued by us
We are satisfied that the two jurors Shri Sheik Ashique Ali and Shri Farman Ali were not in a position to decide the question of authorship of the forged documents satisfactorily
It was not merely a question of under standing the contents of the documents produced in the case the jurors also had to decide whether they were written or signed by the respondent as deposed by the prosecution witnesses or not
They did not possess sufficient acquaintance with English to decide that question satisfactorily
 On that finding it is clear that the appellant s contention that it was a trial coram non judice is well founded
This case is analogous to the case of Ras Behari Lal vs The King Emperor 1 which went up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from a judgment of the Patna High Court confirming the conviction and the sentences of the accused persons on a charge of murder and rioting
In that case the trial was by a jury of 7
The jury by a majority of six to one found the accused guilty
The learned trial judge accepted the verdict and sentenced some of the accused persons to death
The High Court overruled the accused persons  contentions that there was no legal trial because some of the jury did not know sufficient English to follow the proceedings in Court
The Judicial Committee granted special leave to appeal on a report made by the High Court that one of the jurors did not know sufficient English to follow the proceedings in Court
Before the Judicial Committee it was conceded and in their Lordships  view rightly by counsel for the prosecution that the appellants had not been tried and that therefore the convictions and sentences could not stand
Lord Atkin who delivered the judgment of the Judicial Committee made the following 1 1933 LR 60 IA 354 357
647 observations upon the concession made by counsel for the respondent  In their Lordships  opinion this is necessarily the correct view
They think that the effect of the incompetence of a juror is to deny to the accused an essential part of the protection accorded to him by law and that the result of the trial in the present case was a clear miscarriage of justice
They have no doubt that in those circumstances the conviction and sentence should not be allowed to stand
 In our opinion the legal position in the instant case is the same
It was however argued on behalf of the State Government that in the instant case the jury had returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty and that therefore there was no prejudice to the accused persons
It is true that the incompetence of the jury empanelled in this case was raised by the counsel for the State Government in the High Court but in view of the findings arrived at by the High Court as quoted above the position is clear in law that irrespective of the result it was no trial at all The question of prejudice does not arise because it is not a mere irregularity
but a case of mis trial as the Judicial Committee put it
It is unfortunate that a prosecution which has been pending so long in respect of an offence which is said to have been committed about eleven years ago should end like this but it will be open to the State Government if it is so advised to take steps for a retrial as was directed by the Judicial Committee in the reported case referred to above
The appeal is accordingly allowed and the convictions and the sentences are set aside
We do not express any opinion on the question whether it is a fit case for a de novo trial by a competent jury or by a Court of Session without a jury if the present state of the law permits it
The matter will go back to the High Court for such directions as may be necessary if the High Court is moved by the Government in that behalf
Appeal allowed


Summary:
The appellant was tried by a Sessions judge and a jury for offenses under sections 477 A and 408 Indian Penal Code
A large volume of documentary evidence was in English and the statement of one of the principal witnesses was given in English
The main question for decision was the authorship of the forged documents
It was found that the jurors were not well versed in English and were not in a position to decide the main question
The jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty and accepting the verdict the Sessions judge acquitted the appellant
The State appealed to the High Court
In the memorandum of appeal only one ground was taken that the order of acquittal is against the weight of evidence on the record and contrary to law
 The High Court accepted the appeal and convicted the appellant
The appellant contended that the appeal before the High Court was incompetent as no particular errors of law upon which alone an appeal lay under section 418 Code of Criminal Procedure were set out in the memorandum of appeal and that the trial in the Session Court was no trial in the eye of law
641 Held that a memorandum of appeal is meant to be a succinct statement of the grounds upon which the appellant proposes to support the appeal
The practice prevailing in the Allahabad High Court of not taking specific grounds either of law or fact is to be disapproved even assuming that section 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure does not in terms require the setting out of such grounds
Held further that the trial before the Session judge was coram non judice on account of the incompetence of the jury to decide the question of the authorship of the forged documents
In such a case the question of prejudice does not arise as it is not a mere irregularity but a case of mis trial Ras Behari Lal vs The King Emperor 1933 LR 60 IA 354 followed