VENKATARAMA IYAR Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant was the Station Master of Kalahasti Railway Station. He has been sentenced by the Assistant Sessions Judge of Chittoor sitting as a Special Judge, to rigorous imprisonment for two months and also to pay a fine of Rs. 100/- with rigorous imprisonment for one month in default, for having on 14-12-1953 accepted an illegal gratification of Rs. 7-14-0 from Alia Pichai Rowther for booking tanning bark by the railway, an offence punishable under Section 161, Indian Penal Code. THE case was the result of a trap laid by P. W. 7 the Sub Inspector, in which P. W. 1 Alla Pichai Rowther acted as the decoy. THE facts, according to the prosecution, are briefly these. P. W. 1 was a merchant at Kalahasti doing business in tanning bark, which he used to export from Kalahasti by rail and lorry to various places. Even before the appellant joined at Kalahasti Railway Station, it had been the practice of merchants to give illegal gratification to the Station Masters there for booking goods by rail. After the appellant became the Station Master, he carried on the mamool. On 3-9-1953, when P. W. 1 booked 10 bags of tanning bark, the appellant demanded at Rs. 0-12-0 per bag instead of Rs. 0-4-0 per bag as before. P. W. 1 offered Rs. 5/-, but the appellant refused to take it. P. W. 1 went away without paying anything for the consignment. Nevertheless, the goods were duly booked and despatched. A second consignment of 11 bags was booked by P. W. 1 on 2-12-1953. On that occasion, he paid the appellant Rs. 4-2-0 at the rate of Rs. 0-6-0 per bag, as illegal gratification. We next come to the consignment of 13 bags on 14-12-1953, which forms the subject matter of the charge. A few days earlier, P. W. 7, the Sub Inspector of Police attached to the Special Police Establishment at Madras, had contacted P. W. 1 and on the latter's consenting to act as a decoy, arranged for the laying of a trap. For this purpose, he obtained the permission of the Additional District Magistrate, Chittoor, on 10-12-1953 to take the assistance of P. W. 4, th Taluk Magistrate at Kalahasti. On 14-12-1953, at about 8-30 a. m., P. W. 7 took P. W. 1 to P. W. 4. P. W. 1 produced one two-rupee note and six onerupee notes and made a statement that he was going to give them at about 3 p. m. that day as bribe to the appellant, as he had to pay the latter Rs. 7-14-0 at the rate of Rs. 0-6-0 per bag for 13 bags to be booked that day and for 8 bags previously booked in September, 1953. In this statement Exhibit P-5, P.W- 4 has taken, down the numbers of all the seven notes. In accordance with the plan for the trap agreed to on that morning P. Ws. 4 and 7 went to the railway station at about 3-30 p. m. P. W. 2, a mazdoor, and P. W. 3, a trader, happened to be on the platform. P. W. 7 asked each of them to follow P. W. 1 and to watch the transaction between P. W. 1 and the appellant. P. W..2 was instructed to come out of the Station Master's room and to take off his turban cloth as a signal, as soon as P. W. 1 paid money to the Station Master. While P. Ws. 4 and 7 were waiting on the platform, P. W. 5, the Revenue Inspector, who happened to come to meet P. W. 4 on some other business, joined them. THE crucial evidence as to what happened inside the Station Master's room was given by P. Ws. 1 to 3. According to P. W. 1, he asked the appellant for the railway receipt the consignment having been already booked in the morning. THE appellant asked him what the mamool amounted to. P. W. 1 replied that it amounted to Rs. 7-14-0, a ve the appellant the tworupee note and six one-rupee notes and got the railway receipt as well as the balance of Rs. 0-2-0 from the appellant. According to P. Ws. 2 and 3, however, they merely saw P. W. 1 paying the amount to the appellant. Although P. W. 2 stood close to P. W. 1 and P. W. 3 stood at the entrance to the room, neither of them speak to having heard the conversation between P. W. 1 and the appellant, nor about the amount paid, nor the purpose of the payment. As soon as the payment was made, P. W. 2 came out of the room and gave the pre-arranged signal. Immediately, P. Ws. 4, 5 and 7 went into the Station Master's room. P. Ws. 4 and 7 disclosed who they were and asked the appellant to produce the amount given to him as bribe by P. W. 1. THE appellant remained silent and according to the evidence of P. Ws. 4 and 7 at the trial, the appellant also said that he had not received any amount at all from P. W. 1. On the table of the appellant, there were Rs. 87/- in notes and Rs. 14/- in coin besides one hundred-rupee note, which represented the Railway collections for the day. THE two-rupee note and two of the six one-rupee notes of P. W. 1, the numbers of which had been noted in Exhibit P-5, were found among the notes oh the table. P. W. 4 asked the appellant whether he had any other cash and the latter showed a cloth bag inside the right hand drawer of the table, saying that it contained his private money. This bag contained a sum of Rs. 157/-in notes and change and the remaining four one-rupee notes of P. W. 1 were found in them. P. W. 4 seized the incriminating notes, viz., the two rupee note and the six one-rupee notes, under a mahazar Ex. P-10. When questioned whether he had any thing to say, the appellant replied that he was left with a shortage of Rs. 4/- in the railway collections owing to the seizure of the amount from the table and declined to give any statement in writing. P. W. 4 recorded the statements of P. Ws. 1 to 3 on the spot and also drew up his proceedings Ex. P-13 giving an account of what took place. His evidence is that P. W. 1 showed him the Railway receipt and a two anna coin having been given to him by the appellant, in exchange for Rs. 8/- he paid to the latter. P. W. 7 filed the charge-sheet, after obtaining sanction for prosecuting the appellant. THE appellant admitted that he received the notes in question amounting to Rs. 8/- from P. W. 1 and that; the notes were subsequently seized by P. W. 4. His defence was that P. W. 1 did not give the amount as a bribe to him, but that P. W. 1 wanted change for the amount and that he gave the change to P. W. 1. He gave change for Rs. 4/- from the railway collections and explained that as he wanted to get rid of the small coins in his private money, he gave the change for the remaining Rs. 4/- from his private money. According to him, he handed over to P. W. 1 the railway receipt Exhibit P-7 for the tanning bark booked on that day, at about noon immediately after the goods were loaded and the waggons sealed. Thus the main dispute between the prosecution and the defence was as regards whether P. W. 1 gave the Rs. 8/-to the appellant as a bribe or for obtaining change. THE answer to this question depends solely on P. W. 1's uncorroborated evidence. As already mentioned, P. Ws. 2 and 3, who were sent for the specific purpose of watching the transaction between P. W. 1 and the appellant were unable to say anything about the alleged incriminating conversation between P. W. 1 and the appellant in the Station Master's room or the cricumstances in which P. W. 1. paid the Rs. 8/- to the appellant. It has also to be noticed that one mode by which P. W. 1 's testimony could have been corroborated was not availed of by P. Ws. 4 and 7. THEy did not search the person of P. W. 1 immediately before he enterred the appellant's room and immediately after he came out of it. If they had done so and if P. W. 1 had no articles on his person except the notes amounting to Rs. 8/- before he went into the roam and had only the railway receipt and two anna coin after he emerged from the room, these would have conclusively established the truth of P. W. 1's evidence. THE explanation which was given by them for their omission in this respect, which was accepted by the learned Special Judge, was tha.t this was their first trap case and that they had no previous experience of such cases. To my mind, the explanation appears to be unconvincing. In the statement Exhibit P-5 given by P. W. 1 in the morning, P. W. 4 has noted.