CHAKRAPANI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application by Chakrapani, Under Sec. 561A Code of Criminal Procedure, prays for the quashing of the committal order, dated 20 -12 -1965, Sessions Trial No. 168 of 1965 - -State v/s. Chakrapani pending in the court of the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Mathura. The undisputed facts, which have given rise to this application, are as follows:

(2.) It appears that after the aforesaid conviction the Applicant was committed to the court of session by the committal order in question in respect of criminal misappropriation of two sums of monies viz. Rs, 605/ - and Rs. 450/ -. The case with regard to the first sum was that it was shown as deposited in the Savings Bank account on 10 -10 -1962 but was shown in the Savings Bank Journal as deposited on 12 -10 -1962. Similarly the case with respect to the sum of Rs. 450/ - was that it was deposited in the Savings Bank account on 12 -10 -1962 while it was shown in the Savings Bank Journal as deposited on 16 -12 -1962. In other words the Applicant was charged with having committing temporary criminal misappropriation of the aforesaid two sums. The alleged criminal misappropriations were in the knowledge of the authorities when the first trial in respect of the criminal misappropriation for the sum of Rs. 1040/ - took place. The Applicant's case therefore, was that as the two sums in respect of which the present committal order was made, were allegedly misappropriated within one year of the earlier criminal misappropriations and were part and parcel of the same transaction, they should have been made the subject matter of a single trial and a separate trial for the alleged criminal misappropriation of Rs. 605/ - and 450/ - was neither legal, nor desirable with the result that the committal order in question was liable to be quashed.

(3.) On this application notice was issued and further proceedings in the trial court were stayed meanwhile. When the case was called out today no one appeared for the State to oppose this application. After hearing the learned Counsel for the Applicant, I am satisfied that while there is nothing illegal in holding separate trials for offences of the same kind committed in the coarse of one year and even when the offences are part and parcel of the same transaction, it is not desirable to permit separate trials to take place. But before I proceed to give my reasons for coming to that conclusion it is necessary to mention one further fact. It appears from the record of the earlier sessions trial that an application was moved on behalf of the Applicant in that trial bringing the fact of the alleged five items of criminal misappropriation to the notice of the court and praying that the prosecution might be asked to submit the charge -sheet in respect of the remaining two sums also, i.e. the sums which are the subject matter of the present trial, so that a joint trial for the cumulative sum might be held. This application was rejected by the learned trial Judge on the ground that it was misconceived. I have mentioned this fact only to make it clear that both the prosecution and the learned trial Judge were aware at the time of the earlier trial that the Applicant was also allegedly responsible for committing criminal misappropriation of these two sums, only a few months before and further that all these criminal misappropriations were, so to say, part and parcel of the same transaction.