S BANERJEE Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applt Major S. Banerjee has been convicted by the Ct of the First Special Tribunal, Calcutta, of having committed an offence punishable under Section 403, I. P. C., that is to say, he has been convicted of criminal misappropriation. He has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months & to pay two fines which aggregate to the sum of Rs. 1826/8/-, in default of payment to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a further term of three months.

(2.) The case for the prosecution briefly is as follows: The applt Satyamoy Banerjee was Superintendent of the Telegraph Workshops, Alipore, at the time of the alleged commission of the offence charged. As such Superintendent he was in charge not only of the administration of the workshops but also of all the properties such as the stores, timber & other materials used in the workshops. The case against him is that during the period between February & April 1945 the applt got certain articles of furniture made for himself with the materials belonging to Govt which were in his charge as Superintendent of the Telegraph Workshops, Alipore. These articles of furniture were made by carpenters, polishmen & other workmen employed by Govt in the aforesaid workshops. The value of the furniture is said to be Rs. 826/8/-. This briefly is the case for the prosecution. The defence taken is that the articles of furniture which formed the subject-matter of the charge were purchased by the accused & were not made with the materials belonging to the workshop or by any of the 'mistries' or workmen of the workshop. The case, as will be evident from what has been stated above, is really a simple one. Certain matters however will have to be referred to in connection with this case.

(3.) The case originated as follows: There was an investigation held by the Special Police Establishment, Govt of India, in respect of fraud, criminal breach of trust & other offences in the Govt Telegraph Stores & other telegraph workshops. The accused came under suspicion of the police & they applied for a search warrant of the premises occupied by him on 18-6-1945. The object of the search warrant was to seize certain documents mentioned in the list submitted to the Addl Dist Mag, Alipore, & other incriminating documents that may be found there. This search warrant, it may be mentioned, was issued not in connection with the present case but in connection with certain other activities of the accused which raised the suspicions of the Special Police. The warrant was endorsed over to B. C. Dutt, prosecution witness No. 12 for execution & on 20-6-1945 Dutt proceeded to execute the warrant. It seems that he had received certain information relating to the present case & acting on that information he took two persons Jogesh Chandra Ghose, prosecution witness No. 2 & Sudhir Chandra Ghose, Prosecution witness No. 11 with, him when going to search the house of the applt. From what has transpired from the evidence it seems that Dutt had received information that certain furniture would be found in the house of the accused which had been made from material belonging to the Telegraph Workshop by 'mistries' and carpenters employed by the Telegraph Workshop. Dutt arrived at the house of the accused with these two witnesses & upon their identification he seized certain articles of furniture & made a search list thereof which is Ext. 4. The original purpose for which the search warrant had been taken out was not carried out at this stage. Among the articles seized was a large almirah with secret drawers. That was found in the bedroom of the accused & it was sealed apparently for the purpose of preserving any documents which may be in it. Thereafter on a subsequent date namely 26-6-1945 the search for the documents took place but we are not concerned with the result of that search. After investigation a petn of complaint was filed by the Superintendent of Police in which it was stated that certain articles of furniture had been seized from the residence of the accused which had been made from materials belonging to the Govt workshops by labour for which Govt had paid & that these articles of furniture were kept by the accused for his own personal use. There were certain other allegations made in the petn of complaint with which this case is not concerned. Upon the petn of complaint being filed the accused was tried on a charge of criminal breach of trust, an offence punishabe under Section 409, I. P. C. After hearing the evidence & the arguments of the lawyers for either side the Tribunal was of opinion that proof of entrustment was not satisfactory & that therefore the charge under Section 409 I. P. C. of criminal breach of trust was not appropriate. The Tribunal accordingly altered the charge to one of, criminal misappropriation punishable under Section 403, I. P. C. & convicted the accused of having committed that offence.