JUDGMENT Henderson, J. - The Appellant has been convicted of an offence punishable under sec. 201, I.P.C. He was put on his trial together with four other persons and the main charge was one of murder. The case is a good example of what I can only describe as one of those miserable compromises which are becoming so common in the Mofussil. There is a very strong case of circumstantial evidence to establish the charge of murder. In addition to that there was a charge under sec. 364, I.P.C., against the Appellant and another accused and another charge under sec. 201, I.P.C, against the Appellant and other accused persons. Now a verdict which refuses to accept the charge of murder and yet convicts one of the accused on this minor charge would, in my opinion, be utterly per verse. The addition of the minor charge would only give the jury an excuse to evade their duty and so far as the present Appellant is concerned, they apparently took it. I have no doubt at all that the learned Deputy Legal Remembrancer was perfectly correct when he submitted that this conviction is based solely upon the evidence with regard to a statement made by the Appellant to the Police, which is said to have led to the discovery of the dead body. It must be so, because if the other evidence had been relied upon, the other accused persons would also have been found guilty. Mr. Talukdar has contended that that evidence was improperly admitted because it does not come within the terms of sec. 27 of the Evidence Act. In our opinion that contention is well founded. We have had the evidence of the investigating officer put before us end the learned Judge allowed to go before the jury more than what was really necessary to explain the discovery of the dead body. The conviction cannot be supported for another reason. The learned Judge dealt with the case chiefly from the point of view of the murder charges. He put before the jury various bits of circumstantial evidence and made his comments upon them. It is not unnatural that the evidence with regard to the disposal of the corpse took a fairly prominent part. But the charge of murder and the charge upon which the Appellant has been convicted are two totally different things. He put before the jury various bits of circumstantial evidence and made his comments upon them. It is not unnatural that the evidence with regard to the disposal of the corpse took a fairly prominent part. But the charge of murder and the charge upon which the Appellant has been convicted are two totally different things. After having dealt with the murder, the learned Judge ought to have put before the jury the case under sec. 201, I.P.C, and then indicated what evidence there was, if any, to establish the various elements in this particular charge. He never did this at all. The plain fact of the matter is that, if the evidence of complicity in the murder is rejected, there is nothing left to establish any of the various offences which are made punishable under sec. 201. We, accordingly, allow this appeal, set aside the conviction and sentence and direct that the Appellant be set at liberty immediately. Cunliffe, J. 2. I agree. Five persons here were placed on their trial before a Judge and jury, charged with the murder of a tahsildar. They were also charged with offences alleging that they made away with the material evidence knowing or having reason to suppose that a crime had been committed. The actual charge against them under this head, i.e., sec. 201, was that they previously disposed of the body of the murdered man for the purpose of protecting themselves. Further, as my learned brother has pointed out, two of them were also charged with abducting the murdered man. I suppose it will not be in our time that we shall realize what every criminal lawyer in India would probably like to have come about, i.e., to see established in this country a proper office under a Director of Public Prosecutions. If there had been a proper direction of the prosecution in this trial, these charges would, I think, never have been combined before one jury. The fact that they were combined gave a loophole to the members of the jury to shirk their responsibility, with the result, that only one conviction was registered after a full investigation of the death of this innocent man,-whose only crime was that he actually carried on the business of his employer,-with the result, that one person out of five was irregularly convicted of an offence under sec. 201 on evidence which, to my mind, there is no doubt, was improperly and illegally admitted. That is the net result of this expensive trial, whereas the case might quite easily have been put simply and forcibly in front of the jury on the ordinary charge of murder. That is how criminals evade justice in this country, but we have no other alternative when we find convictions brought about by improper means than to set them aside on appeals. I agree with the order proposed.