S.D.KHARE, J. - (1.) THIS is a Government Appeal directed against an order dated 10th November, 1962, passed by the learned Assistant Sessions Judge, Farrukhabad, acquitting all the nine respondents of the charges against them under Sections 452, 322/324/307 read with Section 149 and 147/148 I.P.C. A preliminary objection was raised that the appeal is outside 90 days time prescribed under Article 157 of the 1st Schedule of the Indian Limitation Act.
(2.) THIS appeal was filed on 29th March 1963, i.e., 139 days after the date of the order appealed against. Prima facie it was not barred by time because the memorandum of appeal was accompanied with a copy of the judgment for which an application had been made on 15th November, 1962, and the copy was notified to be ready on 3rd January, 1963, i.e. 50 days after the date of the application. The appeal filed 139 days after the date of the order appealed against, was, therefore, within time if 50 days could be excluded under Section 12 of the Indian Limitation Act as "time requisite" for obtaining a copy of the order appealed against. An affidavit, however, was filed to show that the "time requisite" for obtaining a copy of the order appealed against was in fact ten days only because a copy of the order had become ready for delivery and had been notified as such on 20th November 1962, that a forgery was committed is the register maintained by the Copying Department and that the date 20th November 1962, was scored out and in its place another date i.e. 3rd January 1963, was mentioned. The preliminary objection was opposed on the ground that the correct date on which the copy of the judgment had become ready and notified for delivery was 3rd January 1963, and not 20th November 1962, as alleged by the respondents.
(3.) ALL the affidavits filed were sent to the District Judge, Farrukhabad, for enquiry and report. The District Judge was authorised to admit such evidence as might be necessary. The District Judge got the enquiry made by an Additional Sessions Judge, in charge Copying Department, and his report shows that on 15th November, 1962, an application for copy was made by Sri M.A. Masood, counsel for the State, that the notice of its preparation was posted on 3rd January, 1963, and that the copy was issued to Sri Banwari Lal Saxena, District Government Counsel on 8th January, 1963. The learned Additional Sessions Judge did find that the date 20th November, 1962, had at first been written, under the appropriate column of the register, as the date of the posting of the notice preparation of copy, and had been scored out. He, however, arrived at the conclusion that the date 20th November must have been written under the appropriate column due to some mistake, because it appeared from the Karguzari registers of the copyists who prepared that copy that they had done the work of preparing that copy between the 3rd of December and the 15th of December, 1962.;