KANSHI NATH SINGH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant in this case was called on by a Magistrate to provide bond and sureties on the ground that he had been taking precautions to conceal his presence with a view to committing an offence within the meaning of Clause (a) of Section 109 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Sessions Judge upheld that order, and when the matter came up in revision before the High Court there was a difference of opinion between the two learned Judges who composed the Bench, the Hon ble C.J., holding that the provisions of Section 109 (a) would cover the case, while Mr. Justice King held that they would not. So far as the facts of the case are concerned it is only necessary to state that the applicant Kashi Nath Singh is actually the son of a blind beggar of Benares, and that he represented to the Raja of Manda that he was Kashi Nath Singh, Maharaj Kumar of Toda, a person of influence who would be able to help the Raja of Manda to make a rich marriage and to arrange for loans at low rates of interest etc. The Magistrate and the Sessions Judge held that by representing himself to be the Maharaj Kumar of Toda the applicant had been taking precautions to conceal his presence with a view to cheating the Raja of Manda.

(2.) Both the learned Judges of this Court who have considered the case have found that a man may be concealing his presence when he is concealing his identity. The Hon ble C.J., has pointed out that if a man of small status is posing as a Raja of a big State in order to facilitate his cheating other people he is doing two things: (1) concealing his true identity and (2) trying to impersonate another man, and he further remarks:

(3.) The concealment of a person s true identity evidently consists of two parts: