SURENDRA PRASAD VERMA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by special leave is from a judgment of the Patna High Court accepting the State's appeal against acquittal by the Sessions Judge and convicting the appellant of an offence under Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) The appellant who was the cashier and one Ramchander Lal, a lower division Clerk in the Engineering School of the Government of Bihar at Purnea were prosecuted for offences of criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust in respect of Rs. 11,021.35 alleged to have been entrusted to them and over which they had dominion. The Engineering School was at first located in a building known as Asad Manzil in Purnea City. It was shifted from there in part to Zila school in August 1961. Even after such shifting Asad Manzil continued to be in the occupation of the school and an iron safe embedded in a wall of the office room and some old papers remained there. The cash of the school used to be kept in that from safe, besides moneys belonging to what is described as the students' fund. The safe had a double locking system. There were two keys to the outer door both of which had to be operated to open the said door. At first one of these keys used to be with the appellant and the other used to be with the Principal of the school. The cash however used to be kept in a drawer within the safe of which the key was originally in charge of Ramchander Lal. In order to enable anybody to take out any money from the safe it was necessary to have all three keys to be put into use. The evidence is that after the school shifted from Asad Manzil the Principal entrusted his key of the outer door to the appellant. The two duplicate keys of the outer door and the duplicate key of the drawer used to be kept in a sealed envelope within the drawer. The appellant had gone on leave from 15th May 1961 to 3rd or 4th June, 1961 during which time Ramchander Lal was in charge of the work of the cashier and had all the three keys in his possession. The documents show that at the time when he went on leave the appellant made over the keys of the outer door to Ramchander Lal. There are no corresponding documents to show that he had taken charge after coming back from leave but the facts make it abundantly clear that he had assumed such charge after he joined duty. It was he who used to maintain the cash book and was in charge of the cash. There used to be periodical verification of the contents of the safe. The evidence shows that there was one such verification on August 31, 1961. According to Arvind Kumar, an Assistant Professor who had been entrusted by the Principal to verify the actual cash in hand with the cash balance according to the register the iron chest and the drawer were opened on that date by the appellant when Ramchander Lal was not there. The verification showed that the cash and the drafts in the bank exceeding Rs. 1 lakh tallied with the amounts entered in the register. The evidence further showed that on September 30, 1961 Arvind Kumar did not verify the cash physically as he had done in August 1961. On October 9, 1961 the appellant went to open the safe to take out some cash accompanied by Ramchander Lal. They then found that a large amount of cash was missing from the drawer. They reported the matter to the Principal and a first information report was lodged the same night, the report being written out by the Principal at the dictation of the appellant. According to the report the safe which was locked was opened by the appellant with two outer keys. When the drawer was opened no money was found inside it and the envelope containing the duplicate keys was lying torn there having no keys inside.

(3.) After investigation the appellant and Ramchander Lal were committed to the Sessions Court to stand their trial. The prosecution examined eight witnesses, the important witnesses being P. W. 3. Arvind Kumar, Assistant Professor P. W. 4, Bhagwati Saran Sinha, the Head-Clerk, P. W. 6 Brajnandan Prasad Srivastava, the Principal and P. W. 7 Salahuddin Ahmad, the investigating officer. The Sessions Judge arrived at the following findings:-