MOHANLAL KESHAVLAL Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) TWO points have been raised before us by Mr. Thakore in this appeal. He contends that the conviction of the appellant cannot be sustained on the merits because the order of conviction in substance is based on the evidence of accomplice witnesses and the only corroboration on which the prosecution is able to rely is the corroboration coming from the account books written by the accomplices themselves. Mr. Thakore's argument is that once it is held that the witnesses are accomplices, they should not be allowed to corroborate themselves even though they seek to corroborate their oral testi-mony by the production of a contemporaneous document in the form of account books. Corroboration which is required in law to the testimony of an accomplice is corroboration coming from independent sources, and Mr. Thakore is prepared to say that even if the evidence of the prosecution is taken at its highest the only corroboration which the prosecution has been able to produce is from the accomplices themselves

(2.) THE second point which Mr. Thakore has raised is that the whoie of the trial is without jurisdiction inasmuch as the appellant could not be prosecuted for the offence charged without a valici sanction and the sanction that is produced is invalid. Logically and as a matter of law it would be necessary to deal with the second point first, and if we hold, as we propose to, that Mr. Thakore is right when he contends that the sanction produced against his client is invalid, it would be unnecessary to consider the merits of the other argument urged by him before us. Indeed on the view which we are going to take the trial is invalid and the merits do not fall to be considered at all.

(3.) THE charge against the appellant was that as a station master he was in the habit of accepting bribes from several merchants who wanted to send their goods by railway. He was a station master at Sonasan railway station between 24-12-1947 and 24-11-1948 and the total amount of illegal gratification which he is alleged to have received during this period is Rs. 134-7-0. The prosecution examined Shakralal and Himatlal to show that their firms paid illegal gratifications to the appellant from time to time and it is on tneir evidence and the account books produced by them containing the entries in respect of these payments that the prosecution relied in support of its charge. The learned Judge who tried this case was satisfied that the charge had been proved on the merits and he also held that the sanction was valid. But in coming to the conclusion that the sanction was valid the learned Judge was influenced, and rightly, by the decision of Dixit J. who had occasion to consider the same point in another criminal case filed against the same appellant. Indeed, it appears that in the said earlier case where the present appellant was charged under Section 161, Penal Code it was discovered at the investigational stage that the accused was in the habit of accept- ing bribes and that Investigation really served as the genesis for the present prosecution. The said criminal case had a somewhat chequered career. It had come there to this Court before Dixit J. and one of the points raised before the learned Judge was that the sanction was invalid. Dixit J. felt that this point should have been raised on earlier occasion when he was dealing with the same matter, and since the order of remand passed by pixit J. assumed that the sanction was valid, Dixit J. did not allow Mr. Thakore to raise the point about the invalidity of the sanction when the matter came back to this court against the final order of conviction and sentence. Having stated that argument which was raised before him by Mr. Thakore, Dixit J. referred to the previous history of the case and he observed that the case had been sent down to the learned Additional Sessions Judge in order that he may deal with the merits of the case. "it seems to me", says Dixit J. , "that it is not now open to me to reconsider a finding already recorded in the case. On this ground, I think, the first contention must fail. " it would thus be clear that the merits of the argument that the sanction was invalid never came to be considered and decided by this court in the earlier case.