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Judgment
Curgenven, J.—The petitioner wishes this Court to intervene in the course of this part-heard case and say that the Trial Court is wrong in
holding that all the acts imputed to the accused cannot (can?) be brought within a single transaction, as that term is used in Section 239 of the Code
of Cri. Procedure. The case is one of rioting and other offences, and it can hardly be doubted that in such circumstances a single trial and charge
may comprehend many diverse acts committed over a considerable space of time, if there be ground to believe that they were the result of a
common object. The objection to this Court endeavouring, in the midst of such a trial, to ascertain whether or not the Lower Court is exercising its
powers rightly in holding a single trial, seems to me to be so manifest as scarcely to need stating. I do not go so far as to say that in no
circumstances can a High Court interfere at such a stage in revision, but I think that the learned Judges who respectively decided Kuppuswami
Aiyar, In Re : S. Kuppusami Aiyar, and Ramanathan Chettiar Vs. K. Sivarama Subramania Aiyar, , and the former of whom says that such power
should be exercised with great care, would agree with me that only upon allegations of the gravest departure from procedure should this Court
take the conduct of a case of this description before its termination out of the hands of the Trial Court. On the materials which the petitioner has
made available, I am wholly unable to satisfy myself that such an irregularity has been committed. There appears to be evidence that the four
petitioners cut a fence, which, without more, may well have constituted the ""force or violence"" necessary, with other ingredients, to amount to
rioting. [See Samaruddi v. Emperor ILR (1912) C. 367]. As to this, of course, I can express no opinion. The only view I can take is that in the
interests of justice it is necessary for the trial to terminate before these questions are investigated; and if substance is found in them the petitioners
will have a sufficient remedy then. The Criminal Revision Petition is dismissed.
