MUTHUKUMARASWAMY IYER Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner stands convicted by the Additional First Class Magistrate Trivandrum for an offence of criminal breach of trust under S.409 IPC. and has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 1 1/2 years and to rigorous imprisonment for 6 months under S.477 A, IPC. The case against the accused was that in his capacity as cashier in the office of the Junior Engineer, South Sub division, Trivandrum under the Kerala State Electricity Board, he committed criminal breach of trust in respect of a sum of Rs. 1,951.62 nP. entrusted to him by Pw. 2, an employee of the Government Press, Trivandrum on 8-1-1958, that he omitted to enter the amount thus received in the cash book and thereby falsified the accounts. The accused contended that he was only a Bill Collector, that his duty was only to collect electricity charges from private consumers and not from Government buildings, that no amount was entrusted to him by Pw. 2 and that he had not granted the receipt Ext. P 1. He denied the authorship of the entries in the cash book on 8-1-58 and also stated that the chalan Ext. P 10 was not in his handwriting. No witnesses were examined in his defence. The learned Magistrate on a consideration of the evidence found the accused guilty of the offences charged and convicted and sentenced him as stated above. In appeal the learned Sessions Judge of Trivandrum, on a reappraisal of the evidence, confirmed the conviction and sentence. Aggrieved with the order the accused has coma up in revision.

(2.) The accused was one of the cashiers in the office of the Junior Engineer. Pw. 1 was the Assistant Engineer and Pw. 9 was the Junior Engineer during the relevant period. They have given evidence that the accused was the cashier at the B1 counter, that it was his duty to accept the current charges from the consumers, issue prewritten receipts, credit the collections in the cash book then and there, total up the cash collections for the day and send up the original of the cash book to the Revenue unit, remit the collection into the treasury the next day under a chalan and send up the receipted chalan to the Revenue unit in the electricity office. As in the appellate court, here also learned counsel has not disputed the fact that accused was, in fact, the cashier in the B1 counter. It was also not disputed that it was his duty to collect dues for the electricity consumed by the Government buildings including the Government Press, Trivandrum. The procedure of issuing demand notices to the consumers and the collection of the dues from them had been spoken to by the witnesses, and there is no reason to doubt the correctness of the procedure spoken to by them. The invoice and the receipt which are two parts of a single paper are prepared in the account section called the Billing Unit. Either the Chief Accountant or the Deputy Chief Accountant signs the invoice and the prewritten receipt. They are then sent to the office of the Junior Engineer. The invoice is torn off from the receipt and is issued to the consumers. The receipts relating to the invoices issued are bundled up and entrusted to the respective cashiers and as when the consumers come and pay the amount along with the invoice, the cashier picks up the corresponding receipt and delivers it to the payee after initialling and putting the date in the receipt. The cashier then enters the payment in the cash register and remit the amount into the treasury. If consumer charges are paid by cheque the particulars must be entered in the cash book, the cheque should be got countersigned by the Junior Engineer and sent to the treasury and after intimation of receipt of money, pucca receipts are to be issued.

(3.) Now the question for decision is whether the prosecution has succeeded in proving entrustment of money to the accused. Pw. 2 is the person who had brought the money for payment of the current charges of the Government Press. Pw. 3 is the cashier of the Government Press. He has proved Ext. P. 2 the invoice for November 1957. For payment of the amount, a contingent bill was prepared and it was cashed on 3-1-58 and the amount was sent through Pw. 2 on 8-1-58. In token of having received the money Ext. P1 was got. This is seen from the entries in the contingent register Ext. P 5 and their cash book Ext. P6. It is true that the register would not show that the amount was sent through Pw. 2, but he has sworn that Pw. 3 had entrusted him with Rs. 1,951.62 nP. for payment of electric charges for November 1957, that on the same day he went to the accused in the electricity office and paid him the amount and the accused in his presence initialled the receipt and handed over the same to him and he handed over the receipt Ext. P 1 to Pw. 3. The receipt having been received in the Government Press, there can be no doubt that the money must have been handed over to the electricity office. It is not seriously disputed that the money had not been paid, but the, argument is that the evidence that it was paid to the accused and that it was he who actually issued Ext. P1 receipt cannot be believed.