Full Judgment
Horace Owen Compton Beasley, Kt., C.J.
1. The appellant was convicted of an offence under Section 211, Indian Penal Code, for having brought a false charge of murder against five persons. One Kanniammal, a Shanar woman, wife of P. W. 1, died on the 11th May, 1932 and the prosecution case is that she committed suicide. After she was dead, the appellant went to the Police Station at a place nine miles away from the village and made a complaint (Ex. A) to a constable who was then in the station. In that complaint he charged five persons with having murdered this woman and he described in the complaint how they had murdered her. That complaint the Police investigated and certified to be false. The report that the case was false was put before the Sub-Magistrate and notice was given to the appellant to appear and show cause why his complaint should not be struck off, but he did not appear. The report of the Police was accepted by the Sub-Magistrate who ordered further investigation to be stopped. Hence the prosecution of the appellant.
2. One point taken here as a preliminary point was that the Police were not entitled to prefer the complaint which resulted in the conviction of the appellant and that it was a matter for the Magistrate to take up under Section 195, Criminal Procedure Code, it being argued that as he had taken cognizance of the case, this was a proceeding in his Court. That argument is obviously untenable. It was not a case which the Magistrate had taken any judicial notice of nor were the proceedings judicial proceedings at all. The case had come up before him on a report by the Police that the complaint was a false one. Hence the preliminary point fails.
3. On the facts of the case, the evidence against the appellant is perfectly clear and in the face of that evidence it is difficult to see how any conclusion could be arrived at other than that the appellant had committed the offence with which he was charged. He was quite properly convicted and he received a sentence of five years' rigorous imprisonment which was certainly not too long a sentence having regard to the gravity of the offence. The appeal is therefore dismissed.
Bardswell, J.
4. I agree.