SMT. NAGINDRA BALA MITRA AND ANOTHER versus SUNIL CHANDRA ROY AND ANOTHER

Citation: [1960] 3 S.C.R. 1 · Decided: 12-02-1960 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.K. DAS · Disposal: Dismissed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

,. 
THE ~UPREME COURT REPORTS 
SMT. NAGINDRA BALA MITRA 
AND ANOTHER 
v. 
SUNIL CHANDRA ROY AND ANOTHER 
(S. K. DAs, A. K. SARKAR AND M. HrnAYATULLAH. JJ.} 
Trial by Jury-Charge to the Jury-Duty'of Judge-Misdirec-
tion-Verdict of the jury, when could be interfered with-Code of 
Criminal Procedure, I898 (Act V of I898). ss. I62, 297, 323, 325. 
In a trial by jury, the judge should in his charge to the jury 
be careful to lead them to a correct appreciation of the evidence 
so that the essential issues in the case rriay be correctly determined 
by them after understanding the true import of the · evidence on 
the rival sides. Since a verdict of the jury depends upon the 
charge, if it fails to perform this basic purpose it cannot be regard-
ed as a proper charge and if it contains also misdirections as to 
law, the verdiCt cannot be upheld; but if, upon the general view 
taken, the case has been fairly left within the jury's province, the 
verdict cannot be set aside unless something gross amounting to a 
complete misdescription of the whole bearing of the evidence has 
ocCJJrred. 
Mushtak Hussein v.The State of Bombay, [1953] S.C.R. 809, 
Ramkrishan Mithanlal Sharma v. The State 
of Bombay, [1955] 
l S.C.R. 903 and Arnold v. King Emperor, (1914) L.R. 41 I.A, 149, 
relied on. 
Per S. K. Das and Sarkar,-JJ.-Though the charge to the 
jury in.the present case was lengthy, the length was due in part 
to a protracted narrative of facts and the many disputed questions 
of fact to which the attention of. the jury had to be drawn, and as 
the Judge did state the several disputed points arising therefrom 
and their bearing on the main questions at issue, the jury were 
not misled. 
Held, that there was no misdirection and that the verdict of 
-.t, 
the jur.y could not be interfered with. 
Per Hidayatullah, J.-In his charge to the jury, in the present 
case, (1) the judge took each' witness, turn by turn, paraphrased 
his evidence, sentence by sentence and read out those portions 
which he did not paraphrase, without trying to.draw the atten-
. tion of the jury to the relevancy or materiality of the various 
·February, rz 
2 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS . 
[1960] 
z96o 
parts ; and did not make any difference between the testimony 
of the eye witnesses and of the formal witnesses in the 
Smt. Nagindra matter of t.reatment, (2) while telling the jury that they 
Bala Mslra 
could give the benefit of the doubt on proof of any individual 
. 
v. 
fact if they felt 'any doubt about the proof, the judge did 
Sunil Chandra Roy not at the same time caution them that the totality of facts must 
be viewed in relation to the offence charged and that the benefit 
resulting in acquittal could be given only if they felt that when all 
was seen and considered; there was doubt as to whether the 
accused had committed the crime or not, (3) the judge while 
explaining the ingredients of the offence of grievous hurt under 
s. 325 of the Indian Penal Code failed to tell the jury that grievous 
hurt was only an aggravated form of hurt and that even if they 
held that the accused did not cause a grievous injury it would be 
open to them to hold that he caused a simple injury which would 
bring the matter within s. 323 of the Code, and (4) omissions 
\Vere treated as contradictions and placed before the jury in 
complete disregard of s. 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 
Held, that these defects amounted to misdirections and that 
the verdict could not be accepted. 
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: 
Criminal 
Appeal No. 170 of 1956. 
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and 
order dated June 14, 1954, of the Calcutta High 
Court in Criminal Appeal No. 13 ofl954, arising out 
of the Judgment and order dated January 13; 1954, 
of the said High Court in Case No, 55 of 1953. 
Purshottam Tricumdas, H.J. Umrigar and B. P. 
Maheshwari, for the appellants. 
N. C. Chatter.iee, R. L. Anand and D, N .. Mu-
kherjee, for respondent No. I. 
A. C. Mitra, A. M. Pal and P. K. Bose, for res-
pondent No. 2. 
1960. February 12. The Judgment of S. K. Das 
and Sarkar, JJ., was delivered by S. K. Das, J. 
Hidayatullah, J., delivered a separate.Judgment. 
s. K. Das J. 
S. K."DAs J.-This is an. unfortunate case in more 
than one sense. So far back as August II, 1950, there 
was some incident in premises No. 18, Bondel Road in 
Calcutta in the course of which one Col. S. C. Mitra; a 
Gynaecologist arid Surgeon, lost his life. Col. Mitra 
was the husband of petitioner No. l 

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