ABDUL MAZID AND ANR. Vs. I.M. YACOUB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are related criminal appeals and we shall first deal with the special appeal by one Fazal Khan (No. 823 of 1963) as that alone involves any problem in the disposal of the grounds of appeal. Briefly, stated, the facts are that this Fazal Khan (appellant), a resident of Mysore, and four others, of whom one Abdoul Mazid, is the appellant in U. S. R No. 15383 of 1963, from Jail, were tried together by the courts at Pondicherry, with regard to alleged offences of house -breaking and theft, complicity in theft, receipt and retention of stolen articles etc. The procedure followed was that of the Inquisitorial System recognised under the French Code of Criminal Instruction or Procedure, namely, there was initial investigation by Judge of Instruction who talk cognisance of the information laid by the police; including the statements of the accused (Process -verbal) and this was followed by a commitment and a trial before the court of first instance. The convictions were under Arts. 379, 401, 59 (paragraph 11), 60 460 and 365 of the Code Penal; as far as Fazal Khan was concerned, he was sentenced to imprisonment for 4 years for the offences, to local banishment for ten years and damages of Rs. 10,000. Abdul Mazid (appellant in U. S. R. No. 15383 of 1963) was similarly convicted and sentences. The Tribunal Superieur of Appeal heard the appeals of the respective accused, and confirmed the convictions and sentences.

(2.) As we have earlier pointed out the case of Fazal Khan involves certain special grounds, arising out of the fact that he was arrested by the Pondicherry police at Mysore, and that the recovery of stolen articles from his house or his possession was at Mysore. It is not the case for the prosecution that Fazal Khan actually committed the offence of house -breaking and that in Pondicherry limits, along with the other accused. The case is that he was an accomplice in the commission of those offences, and by providing a car subsequently for conveyance of he stolen properties form Bangalore. The case is also that he received and retained the stolen goods, with guilty knowledge.

(3.) Sri Arunachalam for the appellant (Fazal Khan) raises a preliminary ground of jurisdiction. According to his contention, the Pondicherry courts had no jurisdiction to try his client, because the French law is clear that a person cannot be tried in France or within the French settlements for concealment of stolen properties outside the territorial jurisdiction. Reliance is placed upon a ruling of the Tribunal Superieur d' Appal at Pondicherry of October 1937, quoting a French Precedent tot he effect that he French courts were not competent to hear and determine cases of concealment committed in foreign territory of the proceeds of a theft committed in France. But, there would appear to be two clear answers to this objection we are hence constrained to hold that he Pondicherry courts had jurisdiction in the present matter. First of all, the case against this appellant (Fazal Khan) was not merely that the concealed in foreign territory goods which were the subject of heft in French territory; had that been the only charge, the question of jurisdiction might conceivably have arisen. But the case against him was that he instigated the commission of the offences of house breaking and theft at Pondicherry, though he was not bodily present, arranged for transport of stolen properties along part of the route to Mysore, and finally concealed the stolen goods or portion of those goods, in his house at Mysore.