LAXMAN RAMCHANDRA SURYAVANSHI Vs. STATE OF MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In Crime No. 46 of 1958, the petitioner who was a police constable was accused of having committed an offence of theft. On August 13, 1958, the records relating to this offence which had to be handed over to the concerned Police Prosecutor, which are referred to by the learned Government Pleader as the Police Papers, were handed over to him. On September 10, 1958 when the Police Prosecutor who has been examined as P.W. 1 in this case was busy conducting a prosecution in the Court of a Magistrate and when the other inmates of the house of the Police Prosecutor had gone elsewhere, P.W. 2 the son of the Police Prosecutor who was at home, was approached by the Petitioner and persuaded to allow him to take those Police Papers from the place where they had been kept by the Police Prosecutor in his house. When P.W. 3 a Police constable went to the house of P.W. 1 in the evening, P.W. 1 narrated the incident. P.W. 1 later satisfied himself that the petitioner had not been authorised by any one to take those parts from his house and the evidence given by P.W. 1 is that he had not sent the petitioner to his house to get those papers from P.W. 2. On these facts, the petitioner was charged with having committed offences punishable Under Sections 420 and 451 of the Penal Code.

(2.) The Magistrate acquitted that petitioner of the offence punishable Under Section 451 but convicted1 him of an offence punishable Under Section 420, and sentenced him to three months' rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 200/-.

(3.) The petitioner appealed from the conviction and sentence to the Court of Session, and that appeal was dismissed.