M M KOCHAR PETITIONER Vs. STATE RESPONDENT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision is directed against the order dated 10/5/1966 of the Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi, in Sessions Case No. 20 of 1965 by which he made an order for granting a pardon to Sardari Lal Sabharwal, one of the accused in the aforesaid Sessions case. The revision has been filed by the petitioner who was one of the other co-accused.

(2.) On 13/9/1959, a complaint was lodged with the Police that the petitioner, along with Durgadas Moondhra and the said Sabharwal had, in or about 1957, entered into a conspiracy as a result of which they forged documents and made unauthorised endorsements on import licences which had been issued to M/s. E.M. Alloock and Mehta (private) Ltd. Calcutta, of which the said Moondhra was the Finance Director and the said Sabharwal was the Import Assistant. It was alleged that the petitioner had worked as an Assistant Controller of Imports and Exports in the office of the Chief Controller of Imports and Exports, New Delhi, upto 4/11/1957 and was thereafter working in the cash branch of that office. The challan was filed in the Court of a Magistrate First Class, Delhi and commitment proceedings took place in the Court of Mr. J. C. Aggarwal, Magistrate 1st Class, Delhi, who by his order dated 3/7/1961, discharged the said Moondhra and Sabharwal, but framed the charge against the petitioner for an offence under section 467 of the Indian Penal Code and committed him to the Court of Sessions. The State filed revision petitions against the discharge of the said Moondhra and Sabharwal and the petitioner filed a revision petition against the charge framed against him. The Sessions Judge, Delhi, by his order dated 21/2/1962, accepted the revisions filed by the State and ordered that the said Sabharwal and Moondhra be also committed to the Court of Sesions and dismissed the revision filed by the petitioner. The petitioner, the said Sabharwal and the said Moondhra filed three separate revision petitions against the aforesaid orders dated 21/2/1962 of the Sessions Judge in the Punjab High Court but these revision petitions were rejected by Khanna J. by his order dated 22/3/1964, because it was found that there was prima fade material justifying the trial, of the petitioner and the said Moondhra and Sabharwal. Thereafter, and on being committed, the aforesaid three accused appeared before the Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi, on 15/11/1965. It was then that, on December 1, 1965, the said Sabharwal applied to the District Magistrate, Delhi, under section 337 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for a tender of pardon to him.

(3.) In the aforesaid application, Sabharwal stated inter alia that he was "prepared to make a full and true disclosure of the whole of the circumstances within his knowledge relating to the offence and to every other person concerned in respect of which he had been committed to stand his trial before the court of Sessions." He, therefore, prayed that