INDRAJIT SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Criminal Revision Nos. 1101 of 1964, 1126 of 1964 and 1241 of 1964 are taken up together for consideration. Separate orders regarding the result will be passed in each of them.

(2.) One Indrajit Singh said to be a Preventive Officer in the department of Customs in Criminal Revision Case No. 1101 of 1964 has prayed that the charge framed against him should be quashed. The impugned charge as framed by the learned Presidency Magistrate, 6th Court Calcutta runs as follows :

(3.) In the charge it will appear that as many as fourteen accused persons charged with the offence as mentioned above. Of them the accused No. 14 Indrajit Singh is the petitioner in this case. As I have said before he is a Preventive Officer of Calcutta Customs and was posted from 17-8-1962 at Dum Dum Airport. His posting and duty was in "Oil" at the Dum Dum Airport and on 15-9-1962 he was working in that capacity. Owing to heavy rush of passengers he was called from his duty in "Oil" the Airport Inspector to assist in baggage inspection work and along with other officers he was standing by, when baggages of incoming passengers of Air India were being examined. What happened next was that a suit case containing illicitly imported watches was detected in the possession of one Babulal Gupta and the suit case with contents was seized and an investigation was started. It is alleged that Babulal Gupta made a confessional statement before the Investigating officer of the Customs. It is also alleged that a loader named Kalimuddin Khan and another gentleman Bimalendu Sikdar, a Preventive Officer made confessional statement before the Assistant Collector of Customs. On 9-3-1963 S.N. Banerjee, Assistant Collector of Customs and Superintendent, Preventive Services, filed a complaint in which the petitioner was impleaded as the last accused. Before framing of the charge under Section 252 of the Code of Criminal Procedure the prosecution examined 43 witnesses and tendered some confessional statements of some of the accused persons in evidence. The allegation of Inderjit Singh is that none of the witnesses had led any iota of evidence to implicating him under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, with other accused persons as mentioned before. Further it is contended that only the evidence regarding Indrajit Singh is of P.W. 23 Sri P.N. Chatterjee. Preventive Officer, Calcutta Customs and P.W. 26 W. Ahmed, Customs Inspector, Dum Dum Airport. But from their statements it cannot be found that this petitioner Indrajit Singh could be implicated in any way. Accordingly it is contended by Mr. Dutta appearing for the petitioner Indrajit Singh that the Magistrate committed an error by framing a charge against this petitioner only on the basis of confessional statement of the co-accused before the Customs officer. This, according to Mr. Datta, is not warranted by law and on the basis of such confession this petitioner cannot be roped in, in this case.