ACHYUT ADHICARY versus STATE OF WEST BENGAL

Citation: [1963] 2 S.C.R. 47 · Decided: 12-04-1962 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: J.L. KAPUR · Disposal: Dismissed

Judgment (excerpt)

2 S.C.R. 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
ACHYUT ADHICARY 
v. 
STATE OF WEST BENGAL 
(J. L. KAPUR, K. C. DAs GUPTA 
and 
RAGHUBAR DAYAL, JJ.) 
47 
Mppeal to Supreme Gou,rt--Gerti.ficate by High Gourt-
l'ropriety of-Delay in delivery of judgment--/! a proper ground 
for granting c<rtijicate-Constituti011 of India, Art. 134(1)(c). 
The appellant wa• tried by the Sessions Judge and 
acquitted of the charRe of murder. On appeal the Hi~h 
Court convicted him and sentenced him to imprisonment for 
life. ; The appellant applied for and was granted a certificate 
undet Art. 134 (!) (c) of the Constitution for appeal to the 
Supreme Court on the ground that there was unusual delay in 
delivering the judgment of the High ,Court and that the judg-
ment failed to deal with certain questions of fact whirh were 
raised at the hearing of the appeal. 
Hela, that the certificate granted by the Hi~h Court was 
not a proper certificate. The mere ground of delay in giving 
judgment did not fall within the words "fit one for appeal 
to the Supreme Court" in Art. 134 (l) (c). 
The points 
raised in the appeal before the High Court were questions of 
fact ''·and the Hi~h Court was not justified in passing such 
questions on to the Supreme Court for further consideration 
thu1 converting the Supreme Court into a court of appeal on 
facts, 
Haripada D.v v. State ofWeatBengal, [1956) S.C.R. 639 
and Sidh.swar Ganguly v. State of WMt Bengal, [1958] S. C, R. 
749, followed. 
Banarsi Parshed v. KaBhi KriBhnaNarain, (1900) L. R. -
28 I. A 11 and Radhakriahn1> Ayyar v. Bwaminathna Ayyar, 
(1920} L. R. 48 I. A. 31, referred to. 
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JuRISDICTioN : Criminal 
Appeal No. 115 of 1960. 
Appeal from the judgment a.nd order dated 
September 18, 1959, of the C11loutta. High Court in 
GJvarnm~nt Appeal No. 14of1956. 
196! 
April 12. 
/9G2 
AchJW Adhic•rJ 
v. 
Sl•te •f West Btngol 
48 
SUPREME OOURT REPORTS [1003] 
R. L. Anand, 
Ganganarayan Chandra 
and 
D. N. Mukherjee and P. K. Bose, for the appellant .. 
K. B. Bagchi, 8. N. Mukherjee and P. [(, Boae, 
for the responilent. 
1962. April 12. 
Tho Judgment of the Court 
was delivered by 
KAPUR, J.--This is an appeal against the j11d· 
gment and order of the High Court of Calcutta in 
which a preliminary objection has been ta.ken that 
tlie certificate under Art. 134 (l) (o) is not a proper 
certificate and should therefore be caucelled. A 
further question would arise as to whethe~ it is 
a caso in which special leave to appeal should be 
granted under Art. 136 if we find that the prelim-
inary objeotion is well founded. 
The appellent was tried for murder under s. 
302 of the 1 ndian Pi>nal 
Code in tht> 
court of the 
Additions;! Sessions Judge at Alipore sitting with 
a jury. The jury returned a verdict of no,t guilty 
and the 1tppella.nt was acquitted. Against that 
order the State took an appeal to the High Court 
and the Division Bench found that there was mis-
direction in the oharge to the jury and therefore _ 
after oonsideration of the evidence it set aside the 
verdict of tho jury, alloweq the appeal ard sen ton· 
ced the appellant to imprisonment for lift1. 
The 
appellant then applied to the High Court fur a 
certifioate under Art. 13! (l) (o) which Wll.8 gr,mted 
by another Division Bench of the Court which had 
not heard the appeal. 
Three points were urged 
before the B·rnoh 
hearing thfl 
applioation for oertifica.tt>; (I) that 
there was unusual delay in delivering the juclgment 
and the Division Bench hearing the appeal forget 
to consider many of the question of fact which 
were raised and argued before it. (2) that the High 
Court had no power to substitute its own estimate 
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2 S.C.R. 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
49 
of the evidence in an appeal against the order of 
acquittal in a trial by jury and ( 3) that as a matter 
of fact there were no such misdirection as caused 
a failure of justice or a mistrial and therefore the 
High Court was not entitled to examine the evid-
ence. The learned Judges were of the opinion that 
there was no substance in points Nos. 2 and 3 but 
the first points did raise a question of importance: 
The learned Chief Justice observed:-· 
"The delay in delivering judgment is 
certainly a very unusual fact, and it may lead 
. to the result that some of the points which 
were argued on behalf of the petitioner before 
. the Division Bench were lost sight of by that 
learned judges while delivering their judgment. 
As already stated, these point

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