Sarathchandra vs Attorney-General – sllr 2008 volume 2 page 035

In SARATHCHANDRA v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL, the court considered whether procedural irregularities during a retrial—specifically, the omission to read the indictment and record the accused’s plea, as well as the improper amendment of the indictment—constituted a failure of justice. The findings established that mandatory procedures under the Criminal Procedure Code and relevant constitutional provisions were not observed during the retrial after the accused-appellant’s conviction for murder following a prior acquittal of his co-accused. It was held that non-compliance with statutory requirements under Sections 196, 197, 204, 207, 436 of the Criminal Procedure Code, alongside Articles 13 and 138 of the Constitution, rendered the conviction fundamentally flawed. The appeal was allowed, the convict