GOLAM RAHMAN Vs. KING

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN April 1943, the Government of Bengal received reports from the Collector of Burdwan about acute economic distress in certain parts of that district and sanctioned certain sums of money on various dates amounting to a total of about 4 lacs under the Famine Code to be spent on Test Relief operations under the provisions of the said Code. These operations were carried on in 52 different centres through the District Board under the control of the Collector between the months of April and July 1943. The District Board, in its turn, carried out the operations by 'Agents' who used to be employed on a commission basis. Purulia -Ambalgram road under P. S. Kethgram was one of the 52 Centres where Test Relief operation in the shape of earth work was taken up and one Gulzar Shaikh (who has since died) was employed as an agent at this Centre. Under Section 63 of the Famine Code read with para. 6 of the Famine Manual, the Collector directed that the Agent would employ his own men and the District Engineer would have to pay the Agent the following: (a) Cost of temporary staff employed and (b) Supervision allowance to the Agent [vide Collector's order dated 11th May 1943 -Ext. 1 (41)]. Acting under this order, the District Engineer authorised the Agent to appoint the following temporary staff (1) One Pay Master for every 500 labourers, (2) one Work Sircar for 200 labourers, (3) one dafadar for every 100 labourers [vide Ex. 68 (1)]. To supervise the work of the Agents there was to be a Supervisor under the District Board. The duties of the Agent in carrying out the works were specified in various circular orders and instructions issued by the District Enginers from time to time, as will appear from Exs. 68 (2), 68 (3), 68 (4) and 68 (5). The following were some of the more important duties of the Agents and Supervisors : (1) Men from neighbouring districts are not to be employed for the relief works of the Burdwan District. (2) Agents should maintain a Muster Boll which will be signed by Supervisors in course of inspection. (3) Measurements of earth work are to be entered daily in Measurement Books to be maintained by the Agents and they are to be submitted once a week along with Muster Bolls and Paysheets to the District Engineer. (4) Measurements are to be checked regularly and Muster Rolls are to be checked daily by Supervisors and their initials are to be affixed at the end of the entries of each date. (5) Entries in Measurement Books, Paysheets and Muster Rolls are to be made without leaving any blank space. Supervisors and Sub -overseers are to sign the paysheets and Muster Rolls whenever they visit any centre and corrections, if any, are to be signed by the Supervisor.

(2.) EXHIBIT 1 (29) shows that allowances at the rates of 8, 6 and 4 p. c. were sanctioned for the Agents upon daily labourers employed by them upto 500, 501 to 2000 and above 2000 respectively.

(3.) ONE Santosh Kumar Bhattacharjya was the supervisor of the District Board and Ghulam Rahaman, Mirza Ghulam Hossain, Abdul Based and Gora Chand Chakravarty were members of the temporary staff maintained by the Agent Gulzar Shaikh (deceased) in the Purulia -Ambalpur Section of the Test Relief operations. The prosecution case is that the deceased Agent had submitted a bill for Rs. 16,732 -12 -6 claiming the amount as actually spent by him against 21,09,322 cubic feet of earth work done in the Purulia Ambalpur Section and had received an amount of Rs. 16,599 in several instalments from the District Board on the strength of paysheets submitted from time to time. As a result of departmental enquiry, however, it transpired that the total quantity of earth work shown in the pay -sheets was considerably in excess of the work that had been actually done, that payments alleged to have been made to mates had been artificially inflated by including the names of fictitious and non -existent persons in the muster rolls and by showing that a particular person had worked for a larger number of days than he had actually done and that payments were shown to have been made in the paysheets against forged thumb impressions and in this way the District Board had been cheated to the extent of a considerable sum of money. The prosecution case further is that the accused named above along with one Abadhut Majhi entered into a criminal conspiracy to cheat the District Board of Burdwan by fabricating muster rolls and paysheets and making false entries as indicated above. One of the co -conspirators according to the prosecution case named Bholanath Majhi, made a confession at the time of the investigation and he has been examined as an approver in the case. A finger -print expert and a handwriting expert examined thumb impressions and the handwriting appearing in the different paysheets and compared them with the specimen thumb impressions and handwritings of the different accused taken in Court and as a result of his examination the finger -print expert gave it as his opinion that: (a) the specimen of the right thumb impression of the accused Ghulam Rahaman was identical with the finger -impressions in the pay sheets against the names of 108 mates who were named by the expert in his evidence; (b) the specimen of the left thumb impression of Ghulam Rahaman was identical with the thumb impressions in the pay sheets against the names of four mates; (c) the specimen of the right middle finger impression of Ghulam Rahaman was identical with the finger impressions in the pay sheets against the names of four mates; (d) the specimen of the right thumb impression of the accused Mirza Ghulam Hossain was identical with the finger impressions in the pay sheets against the names of 39 mates; (e) the specimen of the left thumb impression of the accused Mirza Ghulam Hossain was identical with the finger impressions in the paysheets against the names of 66 mates; (f) the specimen of the left thumb impression of the accused Abdul Based was identical with the finger impressions in the pay sheets against the names of 15 mates; (g) the specimen of the left thumb impression of the accused Gora Chand Chakravarty was identical with the finger impressions in the pay -sheets against the names of thirty -one mates.