EASTERN MERCANTILE BANK LTD Vs. N T PHILIP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is one of those very rare cases where an agreement to stifle prosecution is set out on paper, for, the very mortgage deed on which the claim is based expressly states that the mortgage was executed by the 1st respondent for the sum of Rupees 2,400 misappropriated by his son the 3rd respondent and as a compromise of the police prosecution pending against the latter. The prosecution then pending in the Peermade 1st class Magistrates Court was for a non compoundable offence under S.408, I. P. C. It only remains to add that, on the day after the mortgage, the Managing Director of the claimant Bank wrote to the police not to proceed with the prosecution and that the case was eventually thrown out in 1958 under S.253 (2) Cr. P. C, for failure of the prosecution to adduce evidence in support of the case. Obviously the mortgage is void under S.24 of the Indian Contract Act and it is quite unnecessary to refer to the decisions cited at the bar to come to this conclusion. I find issue 3, of the issues framed, against the claimant and dismiss the claim. There will bo no order as to costs.