The State of Uttar Pradesh vs C. Tobit and Others

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 128 of 1955

Decision Date: 14 February 1958

Coram: DAS C.J., SUDHI RANJAN C.J., AIYYAR, T.L. VENKATARAMA, SARKAR, A.K. BOSE, VIVIAN

The case titled The State of Uttar Pradesh versus C. Tobit and Others was decided on 14 February 1958 by the Supreme Court of India. The judgment was authored by Justice A. K. Sarkar, and the bench comprised Chief Justice Das, Sudhi Ranjan, along with Justices AiyyAr, T. L., Venkatarama Sarkar, A. K., Bose, and Vivian. The parties were the State of Uttar Pradesh as petitioner and C. Tobit together with other respondents. The citation for the decision is 1958 AIR 414 and 1958 SCR 1275. The issue concerned the Criminal Procedure Code, specifically section 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Act V of 1898), which mandates that a petition of appeal must be accompanied by a certified copy of the judgment or order against which the appeal is filed. The headnote explained that the term “copy” in section 419 is to be read as a certified copy, thereby requiring any appeal filed under that provision to include such a certified document. The Court referred to the earlier decision in Ram Lal v. Ghanasham Das, A.I.R. (1923) Lah. 150, and distinguished the case of Firm Chota Lal‑Amba Parshad v. Firm Basdeo Mal‑Hira Lal, A.I.R. (1926) Lah. 404. Consequently, the Court held that when a State Government filed an appeal against an order of acquittal under section 417 with only a plain copy of the judgment, and subsequently supplied a certified copy after the limitation period had expired, the High Court was correct in dismissing the appeal as time‑barred, and that order must be affirmed.

In the criminal appeal numbered 128 of 1955, the respondents were tried for offences under sections 147, 302, 325 and 326 of the Indian Penal Code, read with section 149 of the same Code. On 24 July 1953 the temporary Civil Sessions Judge at Gorakhpur delivered an acquittal in Sessions Trial No. 5 of 1953. The State of Uttar Pradesh, dissatisfied with the acquittal, intended to invoke section 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code to appeal to the High Court. Article 157 of the Indian Limitation Act required that an appeal against an order of acquittal be filed within six months of the judgment, making the deadline 24 January 1954. Since that day was a Sunday, the Deputy Government Advocate filed the petition of appeal on the following day, 25 January 1954, on behalf of the State. The petition was accompanied only by a plain copy of the judgment that the State sought to challenge. This initial filing set the stage for the subsequent procedural developments concerning the requirement for a certified copy and the question of statutory limitation.

The High Court noted that the petition of appeal was accompanied only by a plain copy of the trial court’s judgment, which did not appear to be a certified copy. After receiving the judicial records, the State applied on 12 February 1954 for a certified copy of the judgment. The certified copy was delivered to the Deputy Government Advocate on 23 February 1954, and he presented it before the High Court on 25 February 1954. On that date, Justice Harish Chandra ordered that the certified copy be accepted and granted the appellant an additional three days to file an application under section 5 of the Indian Limitation Act seeking condonation of the delay in filing the certified copy. The appellant filed the condonation application on the same day, and the High Court directed that it be placed before a Division Bench for consideration. The Division Bench, consisting of Judges M. C. Desai and N. U. Beg, heard the application; counsel for the appellant argued that the circumstances provided sufficient cause for the failure to file the certified copy with the petition and that the plain copy filed with the petition satisfied the requirement of section 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On 7 December 1954, the two judges jointly held that no case existed for extending the limitation period under section 5 of the Limitation Act and therefore dismissed the condonation application without further comment. However, they differed on whether a plain copy of the judgment fulfilled the statutory requirement. Judge Desai held that it did, whereas Judge Beg took the opposite view. Because of this disagreement, the matter was referred to the Chief Justice for a third opinion. Judge Raghubar Dayal, who considered the referral, gave his judgment on 31 January 1955, declaring that the term “copy” in section 419 denotes a certified copy, and directed that his opinion be placed before the Division Bench. After receiving this third opinion, the Division Bench concluded that the appeal memorandum had not been accompanied by “a copy” as required by section 419, and that the certified copy filed on 25 February 1954 was submitted after the limitation period for appealing the July 24 1953 acquittal had already expired; consequently, with the condonation application dismissed, the appeal was deemed time‑barred and was dismissed.

On 24 July 1953 the period prescribed by law for filing an appeal had already elapsed, and because the request to extend that period was rejected, the appellate court concluded that the appeal was submitted out of time and therefore dismissed it. Nevertheless, in the same order the judges issued a certificate stating that the matter was appropriate for an appeal to this Court, and it is on the basis of that certificate that the present appeal is brought. The appeal was filed under section 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which reads: “Every appeal shall be made in the form of a petition in writing presented by the appellant or his pleader, and every such petition shall (unless the Court to which it is presented otherwise directs) be accompanied by a copy of the judgment or order appealed against, and, in cases tried by a jury, a copy of the heads of the charge recorded under section 367.” The sole issue for determination is whether the term “copy” in this provision requires that the accompanying document be a certified copy of the judgment or order appealed from. The provision plainly mandates that “a copy” of the judgment must be filed together with the petition of appeal. The ordinary dictionary meaning of “copy” is a reproduction or transcription of an original writing, and the provision does not expressly demand a certified copy. On that basis the appellant contends that the word “copy” has only one ordinary meaning, namely a transcript or reproduction of the original document, and that there is no uncertainty or ambiguity in its usage; consequently, no question of construction or interpretation should arise. The appellant further submits that the court is obliged to apply this ordinary grammatical meaning to the word “copy” in section 419, and that filing an ordinary, un‑certified copy of the judgment along with the appeal petition satisfies the statutory requirement. However, the matter is not so straightforward. A “copy” may be an un‑official plain copy or it may be a certified official copy. If a certified copy is annexed to the petition, the requirement of section 419 is unquestionably fulfilled, because a certified copy is also a “copy”. Therefore, a question of construction does arise as to whether the term “copy” in section 419 is intended to refer exclusively to a plain copy, exclusively to a certified copy, or to encompass both kinds of copies. It is well settled that when doubt exists about the meaning of words in a statute, their interpretation must be guided by the purpose of the enactment, the subject‑matter, and the legislative intent, rather than by a purely literal or grammatical analysis.

In interpreting a word used in a statute, the Court explained that the meaning must be read in harmony with the subject of the enactment and the object that the Legislature intended to achieve. The Court noted that the meaning of such words is not determined mainly by strict grammatical or etymological rules, nor even by their popular usage, but rather by considering the subject matter, the occasion on which the word is employed, and the purpose to be attained, as observed in Maxwell’s Interpretation of Statutes, 10th Edition, page 52. Consequently, to ascertain the true meaning of a statutory term, one must examine the subject‑matter of the enactment and the legislative purpose behind it. Applying that principle, the Court turned to several provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure that are relevant to the matter before it. Section 366 of the Code, found in Chapter XXVI titled “Of the Judgment,” mandates that the judgment in every trial before a criminal court of original jurisdiction shall be pronounced in open court and in the language of that court. Section 367 requires that each such judgment be written by the presiding officer, or by a person acting on his dictation, in the language of the court or in English. The written judgment must contain the points for determination, the decision on those points, and the reasons for the decision, and it must be dated and signed by the presiding officer in open court. Section 369, unless a different rule is provided by law, prohibits the court after signing its judgment from altering or reviewing it, except to correct purely clerical errors. After a judgment has been pronounced and signed, Section 372 directs that it be filed with the record of proceedings, thereby becoming part of the official record and remaining in the custody of the officer who is in charge of the records. Section 371 deals with the rights of an accused concerning copies of the judgment. When an accused is sentenced to death and an appeal lies as of right, the court must inform the accused of the period within which he may, if he so wishes, prefer his appeal. When the accused is sentenced to imprisonment, the court must, as soon as possible after delivering the judgment, give the accused a copy of the findings and the sentence free of cost without any application. This provision does not affect the accused’s right, on his own application, to obtain free of cost a “copy” of the entire judgment or order, and, in jury trials, a “copy” of the heads of charge to the jury. The Court clarified that the copy supplied under sub‑section (4) of Section 371 is not a full copy of the entire judgment; however, the copies that may be obtained on application under sub‑sections (1) and (2) of Section 371 are full copies of the judgment or, as the case may be, of the heads of charge to the jury. The copy of the findings

In this case the Court observed that the copy of the sentence supplied to the accused under subsection (4) of section 371, which is provided automatically without a request, is intended to enable the accused to decide whether he wishes to challenge his conviction and the sentence by filing an appeal. The copies that the accused may obtain under subsections (1) and (2) of the same section, however, are complete copies of the entire judgment or of the heads of charge, as appropriate, and are supplied only when the accused makes a formal application for them; their purpose is to allow the accused to prepare the grounds of appeal and to attach those grounds to the appeal petition as required by section 419 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Court further noted that the statute contains no provision analogous to section 371 that obliges the court to provide a copy of the judgment to the State or to the public prosecutor when the State seeks to appeal an acquittal. Consequently, if the State intends to file an appeal under section 417 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it must procure a copy of the judgment or of the heads of charge on its own initiative, so that it can file that copy together with its appeal petition in compliance with the requirement of section 419. According to section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act, a judgment is classified as a public document because it constitutes the act or record of a judicial officer. Section 548 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that any person who is affected by a judgment and who wishes to obtain a copy of the judge’s charge to the jury, or of any order, deposition, or other part of the record, is entitled, upon making an application, to be furnished with such copy. The applicant must address the request to the public officer who has custody of the document. Under section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act, that public officer is obliged, upon demand and upon receipt of the prescribed legal fees, to supply the applicant with a copy that bears a certificate at the foot stating that it is a true copy of the original document; in other words, a certified copy must be provided. Therefore, whether the request for a copy is made by the accused under subsections (1) and (2) of section 371 or by the State, the copy that is supplied by the public officer must be a certified copy. When section 419 requires that a copy of the judgment or of the heads of charge be filed along with the appeal petition, it follows that the certified copy obtained under the foregoing provisions is the document that must be filed. Finally, the Court pointed out that Articles 154, 155 and 157 of the Indian Limitation Act prescribe the period within which an appeal petition must be presented, and it recognized that obtaining a certified copy may require a small amount of time, which must be considered when calculating whether the appeal is filed within the prescribed limitation period.

In order that the appellant could make full use of the limitation period, the Court observed that Section 12 of the Limitation Act allowed the time taken to obtain a certified copy of the judgment or of the heads of charge to be deducted from the period within which the appeal had to be filed. A certified copy of the judgment, on its face, recorded the date on which the application for the copy was made, the date on which the copy was prepared for delivery, and the date on which it was actually delivered. By examining these dates, the Court could readily determine the duration required to obtain the copy and could therefore subtract that duration from the overall computation of the limitation period. Considering all the relevant facts, the Court noted that a certified copy of the judgment had to be filed together with the petition of appeal; that the copies of the judgment which the accused could obtain free of cost under Section 371(1) and (2) read with Section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act, and which the State could obtain by applying under Section 76 of the same Act, were required to be certified copies; and that the time needed to obtain such copies was to be excluded from the limitation period calculation. These facts, taken together, led the Court to conclude unequivocally that the copy to be filed with the petition of appeal must be a certified copy.

The Court further explained that Section 419 required the filing of a copy of the judgment or order appealed against for a purpose that became clear when the Court turned to Section 421 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Section 421 directed the court, upon receiving the petition of appeal and the copy of the judgment or order under Section 419, to examine the documents and then to either dismiss the appeal summarily if there was no sufficient ground for interference, or, if the appeal was not dismissed summarily, to proceed under Section 422 to give notice to the appellant or his pleader and to any officer appointed by the Provincial Government, informing them of the time and place of hearing, and to furnish that officer with a copy of the grounds of appeal. In cases of appeal under Section 417, as in the present matter, the court was also required to give similar notice to the accused. The Court emphasized that the act of summarily rejecting an appeal or admitting it and issuing notice constituted a judicial act that had to be based on proper material. Accordingly, the authenticity and correctness of the copy of the judgment were essential for the appellate court to make interlocutory orders that could have serious consequences. For example, when the appeal was filed by the accused, the accused might seek a stay of execution of the order, such as the realisation of a fine, and the court needed a reliable certified copy to decide such applications.

In an appeal, the accused may move the court for bail. In the same way, when the State files an appeal, the State may request that the accused be apprehended and brought before the court by means of a warrant of arrest. All orders that are made on such applications are judicial acts, and consequently the appellate court must have proper materials before it in order to take those judicial decisions. For that reason it is of the utmost importance that the copy filed with the petition of appeal be a full and correct copy of the judgment or order that is being appealed against. Section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act provides that the public officer who is required to supply a copy must attach a written certificate at the foot of the copy stating that it is a true copy, must indicate the date, and must subscribe his name and official title. The production of a certified copy therefore, ipso facto and without any further proof, shows ex facie that the copy is correct and that the appellate court may safely rely on it. The law also mandates that the appellate court must peruse the copy of the judgment and render a judicial decision on the basis of that copy, which means that a correct copy of the judgment must be before the court. This further indicates that the copy required to be filed with the petition of appeal under section 419 should be a certified copy, because such a certified copy will ipso facto assure the appellate court of its correctness.

The court is said not to be able to summarily reject or admit the appeal, nor to make an interlocutory order, until either the original record is produced or a certified copy of the judgment or order is presented before it. Although section 421 of the Code of Criminal Procedure authorises the court to call for the record of the case, the court is not obligated to do so in every instance. Requiring the record in every case or keeping the proceedings in abeyance until a certified copy is presented would inevitably cause delay, and there is no apparent reason for such delay when dealing with criminal matters that affect the personal liberty of a convicted accused. All of this inconvenience could be easily avoided if section 419 is read and understood to require that a certified copy be filed together with the petition of appeal. Counsel for the appellant argues that in urgent cases the court need not wait for the record or the certified copy to arrive, but may instead call upon the appellant to adduce evidence proving the correctness of the judgment so that the court can act on it and take a judicial decision. The first objection to that suggestion is that the Code of Criminal Procedure does not envisage any such procedure. The second objection is that adopting such a procedure would likely cause further delay, and the third point is that ordinarily no question arises about proving the correctness of the judgment in the manner in which a document is proved when it is tendered as evidence.

In this case the Court explained that section 419 of the Code does not create a separate ground for proving the correctness of the judgment under appeal by the same procedure that is used to prove a document offered as evidence. Assuming, however, that the appellant is required to establish that the judgment being appealed is correct, the appellant would then have to call witnesses to give oral testimony concerning the contents of the original judgment so as to show that the plain copy filed with the appeal petition faithfully reproduces that original. The Court then examined whether such oral evidence could be admitted. It noted that section 367 of the Code of Criminal Procedure obliges the judgment to be reduced to writing, and that section 91 of the Indian Evidence Act mandates that when any matter is required by law to be reduced to a document, no evidence may be given for the proof of its terms except the document itself or secondary evidence where such secondary evidence is permitted under the earlier provisions of the Act. Consequently, if a witness were placed on the stand and asked whether the copy produced before the appellate court is a correct copy of the original judgment filed in the trial court, the witness would inevitably have to state that he had read the original judgment and, from memory, believes that the copy reproduces it accurately. This testimony would amount to secondary evidence of the contents of a document that, by law, must be in written form. The Court therefore raised the issue of whether such secondary evidence is admissible under the Indian Evidence Act. It further observed that, because the judgment must be in writing under section 367 of the Code and must be filed with the record under section 372, the judgment becomes, by virtue of section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act, a public document. As a public document, only a certified copy, and no other form of secondary evidence, is permissible under section 65 of the Evidence Act. This analysis led the Court to conclude that the term “copy” in section 419 must be understood, in the context, as meaning a certified copy, a view that had previously been held in Ram Lat v. Ghanasham Das. The Court also referred to the decision in Firm Chhota Lal Amba Parshad v. Firm Basdeo Mal‑Hira Lal, noting that that case was decided on its unique facts wherein a certified copy could not be obtained because the original judgment could not be located in the record, and that the court in those circumstances was justified in dispensing with the requirement of a certified copy.

A.I.R. (1923) Lab. 150 and A.I.R. (1926) Lah. 404 were cited. The counsel for the appellant then argued that the power given to the appellate court, to which the petition of appeal is addressed, to dispense with the requirement of filing a copy of the judgment that is being appealed against demonstrates that the Legislature did not consider such filing to be essential. Consequently, the counsel maintained that if filing a copy is not deemed essential and may be wholly dispensed with, a plain copy should satisfy the requirement of section 419.

The counsel explained that the power to dispense with filing a copy had to be conferred on the court for very good reasons. In some situations an order staying the operation of the order that is the subject of the appeal may be required immediately, and the urgency of the matter may not tolerate the delay that would inevitably arise if a certified copy of the judgment or order had to be obtained. In other situations a certified copy of the same judgment might already be before the same court in a related or connected appeal, making the filing of an additional certified copy an unnecessary formality. However, the counsel warned that the court’s ability to dispense with filing a copy in urgent cases does not mean that, when the court does not consider such dispensation appropriate, it may be satisfied with a plain copy of the document, which on its face provides no guarantee of correctness.

The appellant’s counsel then referred to several provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure in which the word “copy” occurs, specifically sections 425, 428, 442 and 511. It was argued that these sections speak of a certified copy and that, where the Legislature explicitly demands a certified copy, the intention is clear. Since the word “copy” in section 419 is not qualified by the term “certified”, the counsel inferred that the Legislature must have intended that a plain copy would be sufficient for the purpose of that section.

Turning to the four cited sections, it was observed that the first three – sections 425, 428 and 442 – do not actually refer to a certified copy of any document. Section 425 provides that whenever a case is decided on appeal by the High Court under Chapter XXXI, the High Court shall certify its judgment or order to the court that recorded or passed the finding, sentence or order that is being appealed. In effect, the High Court must formally communicate its decision on the appeal to the lower court whose decision was challenged. Similarly, section 428 requires a court that is taking additional evidence to certify that evidence to the appellate court. Section 442 mandates that the High Court certify its decision on a revision to the court that recorded or passed the finding, sentence or order that is being revised.

The Court observed that section 511 specifies that proof of a prior conviction or acquittal must be established by producing an extract that is certified by the officer who has custody of the court records, and that such extract must be a copy of the sentence or order. Consequently, the four statutory provisions relied upon by the appellant—sections 425, 428, 442 and 511—do not actually refer to a certified copy of a judgment or order that is to be supplied to a party on his request. Accordingly, the argument advanced by the appellant, that a certified copy is required under those sections, could not be sustained. The Court held that the meaning of the word “copy” in any particular provision depends on the subject matter and context in which the term appears. In many of the sections mentioned, the purpose of a “copy” is merely to give notice to the person concerned or to the public, and such a copy is not intended to be relied upon by a court for the purpose of issuing a judicial order. The Court agreed with the observation of Justice N. U. Beg that the object and purpose of those sections are different from the object of section 419, where the copy is intended to be acted upon by the appellate court in forming its decision. The Court declined to express an opinion on whether any of the other sections require a plain copy or a certified copy, noting that each provision must be interpreted on its own language, context and setting. However, the Court concluded that for section 419, given its purpose and context, the copy that must be filed with an appeal petition must be a certified copy. The Court also noted references to several provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure where the term “copy” occurs, but decided it was not appropriate to discuss the interpretation of that term in those provisions. In view of the foregoing reasons, the Court affirmed that the order issued by the Allahabad High Court on 8 February 1955 was correct, and consequently dismissed the present appeal.