SUKHDEO SHARMA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant, Sri Sukhdeo Sharma, an Advocate practising in Ghaziabad (district Meerut) has been convicted by a first class Magistrate of Ghaziabad for an offence under Section 448 I. P. C. and has been sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/-. His conviction and sentence have been confirmed in appeal by the II Additional Sessions Judge of Meerut.

(2.) The prosecution story in brief runs as follows. At about 10 p.m. on 4-8-1959, Sri M. Sayee-dullah, S. D. M. Ghaziabad, returned home with his wife after visiting a friend and found the door of his office room open, with the light on. A man came out and went away without replying to any questions, and then the accused applicant also came out of the room, wearing a bush shirt and green striped pyjama trousers, The Magistrate asked him what he was doing in the office and he replied that he had brought some rulings. Sri Sayeedullah then enquired why he had come at such a late hour, but the applicant gave no further reply and hurriedly jumped down from the verandah and drove away in a car that was standing outside the gate. When the Magistrate went into his office he found that a red cloth bundle containing the file of a certain case under Section 145 Cr. P. C. in which the applicant had been appearing for one of the parties, had been opened and the file looked into; and suspecting foul play, he at once informed the police.

(3.) The accused applicant has admitted practically all the facts alleged by the prosecution; the only item of any importance that is denied by him being the suggestion that Sri Sayeedullah asked him why he had come so late in the night and that he went off without replying to this question. He had been appearing in the court of Sri Sayeedullah along with Sri H. C. Mathur, an Advocate of Meerut, for one Ram Bilas in a case under Section 145 Cr. P. C. In the course of the arguments in that case, which were concluded on 4-8-1959, 17 rulings were cited On behalf of Ram Bilas; ana the Magistrate, while fixing 6-8-1959 for judgment, asked the counsel to send him these rulings. Accordingly at about 9.45 p.m. that very night the accused, accompanied by his servant, drove in his car to Sri Sayeedullah's house with 11 of the rulings which he had been able to trace out. He was unable to take the remaining 6, as those had been cited by Sri H. C. Mathur and he had omitted to note down the references. On arriving at the house, he found that Sri Sayeedullah was out, but the orderly allowed him to enter the office room and the 11 books that he had brought were deposited there by his servant. While in the office he noticed the bundle containing the file of the Section 145 case and it occurred to him that the Magistrate had noted down the references to the 6 missing rulings; and in order to find out these references he opened the bundle and started going through the file. At this juncture the Magistrate and his wile returned home and the accused was so embarrassed at being found in the office room at that late hour in inadequate attire that he took his departure without waiting to give any proper explanation to Sri Sayeedullah for his conduct, apart from telling him that he had brought some rulings.