P L D 1954 Dacca 175 (PLP)

Held, that "Before your honour" means before the District Magistrate and that the bond could not be forfeited for failure to produce the accused before the Assistant Sessions Judge. Maksum‑ul‑Hakim, for Petitioners. Syed Modaris Ali, for the Crown. ELLIS, J.--‑In this case a Rule was issued on the District Magistrate of Jessore at the instance of two petitioners, Anil Kumar Chatterjee and Bimal Chandra Tarafdar, who stood surety for the accused in a certain Sessions trial. The trial ended in a conviction by the Assistant Sessions judge, and thereafter an appeal was preferred before the Sessions Judge. The Sessions judge allowed the appeal, set aside the order of conviction and sentence and sent back the case for retrial and allowed bail to the accused persons. The petitioners thereupon stood surety on behalf of the accused undertaking to produce the accused before the Court when called upon to do so. When the requisite time arrived, less than two days' notice was given to the sureties who were called upon to pro duce the accused on the 3rd of July, 1950, before the Assistant Sessions Judge of Jessore. They failed to do so, and thereafter proceedings were drawn up against them under section 514 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The bonds were forfeited and the petitioners were called upon to pay the penalty. They moved this Court in the exercise of its Criminal Revisional Jurisdiction and obtained the present Rule. One substantial ground has been taken in support of the Rule, and that is that the bond which was actually executed by the petitioners was not a bond under which they bound themselves to produce the accused before the Assistant Sessions judge at all, and therefore the bond could not be for feited nor could the penalty be exacted on the score of their failure to do something which they never undertook to do. The translation of the bond clearly shows that the petitioners undertook to stand surety for the accused who were to be produced before the District Magistrate on the disposal of the appeal or whenever called upon to do so. In this con nection, the learned Sessions Judge is in error when he states in the body of his judgment: "As would appear from the security bonds the Mukhtear sureties undertook to produce the accused before the District Magistrate or any other Court." The orginal and the translation both show that the bond which was furnished in the Court of the District Magistrate at Jessore recited that the petitioners undertook to produce the accused "before your honour" "Before your honour" means before the District Magistrate of Jessore and not before the Assistant Ses sions Judge of Jessore. There was no mention of any other Court. They can therefore rightly claim that they have been aggrieved by the bond being forfeited and the penalty exacted on the ground that they had not produce the accused before the Court of the Assistant Sessions Judge as they never undertook to produce them before him. In these circumstances the Rule is made absolute and the order of Additional District Magistrate dated the 25th of May, 1951, is set aside. A. H. Rule made absolute.