Sinha, J.:— An application was presented by Mr. P.C Chaturvedi, a learned counsel of this Court, on behalf of Sita Ram Tandon for the transfer of the criminal case King-Emperor v. Sita Ram Tandon, of 1945, pending before Mr. Bhanu Prakash Elhence, Assistant Sessions Judge of Moradabad, to some other court.
It appears that Sita Ram Tandon was charged with various offences under sections 417, 466 and 409/379 of the Indian Penal Code, that is for cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust and theft. This trial was started on 23rd March, 1946. It appears that one Sundersan Iyer was examined as a witness, and, according to the affidavit sworn by Lachmi Narain, a relation and pairokar of the accused, the learned Judge expressed an opinion as regards certain documents that they had been forged by the accused. It was also observed that the accused was guilty of interpolations.
The application for transfer was presented before Mr. Justice Malik who issued notice and stayed the proceedings. A copy of the affidavit was, as usual, sent to the learned Assistant Sessions Judge for such explanation as he deemed proper to submit. The learned Judge denied the remarks attributed to him. The matter came before Mr. Justice Mulla on 16th May, 1946. The application for transfer was, in view of the explanation, very properly not pressed by Mr. Chaturvedi. The learned Judge, however, thought that the interests of Justice demanded that serious notice should be taken of the conduct of Lachmi Narain. Notice was, therefore, sent to him to show cause why he should not be prosecuted for an offence of perjury. In answer to this notice Lachmi Narain appears before me.
I have heard him and have also heard at length his learned counsel, Mr. Jalaluddin Ahmad, and have come to the conclusion that no useful purpose will be served by taking any proceeding against him. He appears to me a simple man, unaware of the intricacies of the proceedings in a court of law. It is true that he has sworn an affidavit, all the paragraphs of which he has certified on his “personal knowledge and belief”, but there is no specification as to which of the paragraphs are based on personal knowledge and which on belief. In this state of things it is open to him to contend that the mischievous paragraphs are based, not on his personal knowledge, but on belief, and there was good ground for this belief because Sita Ram Tandon himself had, on 25th March, 1946, made an application before the learned Assistant Sessions Judge in which he had made precisely the same allegation which Lachmi Narain made in the affidavit, which he swore in support of the application presented to this Court.
The learned Crown counsel contends that Lachmi Narain was bound “to state the truth”, but if he made a statement “which is false, and which he either knows or believes to be false or does not believed to be true” he is clearly guilty of an offence within the meaning of section 191 of the Indian Penal Code.
As their Lordships of the Judicial Committee in the well known case of Dwarka Nath Varma v. Emperor(1) says:
“It should be unnecessary to point out that a man may make a statement in the belief that it is true, though good reasons exist for knowing it to be false, for, unfortunately, man's beliefs are not always influenced by good reasons.”
The allegation in the application presented by Sita Ram Tandon on 25th March, 1946, may not be a true allegation or a slight inquiry might have demonstrated that it was untrue, nevertheless, it afforded good ground for Lachmi Narain to entertain ‘a belief that it was true’.
I am, therefore, of opinion that the learned Crown counsel has failed to convince me that Lachmi Narain made a deliberately false statement when he swore the affidavit in support of the application for transfer of the case from the court of Mr. Elhence the learned Assistant Sessions Judge.
I, therefore, direct the notice to be discharged.