SIRMANDER DAS Vs. STATE AND ANR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an accused's application in revision at an interlocutory stage. The applicant Srimander Das has been charged by a learned first class Magistrate of Saharanpur with an offence punishable under Section 409, IPC. His contention is that, on the facts alleged, no charge should have been framed against him under Section 254, Code of Criminal Procedure, but he should have been discharged under Section 253 of the Code.

(2.) The facts giving rise to the present revision were as follows. The applicant was at the relevant time the manager and partner of the Saharanpur branch of a joint Hindu family banking concern known as the Mansa Ram Bank.

(3.) It is said that on 31-5-1955 the opposite party Ram Chandra gave a sum of Rs. 4,400 to the Saharanpur branch of the bank for transmission to Dehli and he obtained a draft for that amount in the name of one Chhabil Das on the Central Bank of India Ltd. at Delhi. Likewise, Ram Chandra paid another sum of Rs. 3,500 in the said branch of the bank at Saharanpur on 3-6-1955 and obtained another draft in the name of the same person Chhabil Das, but this time on the Allahabad Bank Ltd. Delhi. Both the drafts were signed by the applicant as manager of the Saharanpur branch of the Mansa Ram Bank. The drafts in due course were endorsed by Chhabil Das in favour of one Behari Lal, presumably because the former had no Bank account in Delhi. Both these drafts were presented for payment by the endorsee Behari Lal, through the National Bank of Lahore, Delhi branch, at the aforesaid Delhi Banks, the first draft on 4-6-1955 and the second on 6-6-1955. Both the drafts were however dishonoured, the Central Bank doing so with the endorsement, "not arranged for" and the Allahabad bank with the endorsement "exceeds arrangement." In other words, in either case the respective sums of money covered by the two drafts were not paid to the endorsee. In the meanwhile, on 7-6-1955 the bank stopped payments and soon after certain customers of the bank applied for adjudication of the partners as insolvent.