STATE Vs. GOLAM RASUL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is from Andaman and Nicobar Islands and has been preferred by the State through the Public Prosecutor, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, against an order of acquittal passed by the Additional District Magistrate, Andaman and Nicobar Islands on 27th December, 1962 in a trial held in Port Blair in Criminal Case No. 63/40 of 1962 in which the respondent Golam Rasool was charged for an offence under Section 408 of the Indian Penal Code alleged to have been committed by him on or about 16th December, 1959 at Long Islands as a servant in the employment of Forest Co-operative Chain Stores in respect of Rs. 977.08 nP. That amount was alleged to be the money recovered from the Forest Mazdoors against goods supplied to them on credit which the Range Officer Henry Lawrence sent through N. Kaniappa Mudaliar and alleged to have been received by Golam Rasool.

(2.) Case started on the report of the President of the Forest Co-operative Chain Stores Ltd., Chatham to the Superintendent of Police, Port Blair, in which it was alleged that Rs. 2721.06 nP. was found short. (His Lordship reviewed the evidence in the case and proceeded).

(3.) In that state of evidence the finding of the learned Magistrate at the trial court that prosecution has failed to prove that the money was entrusted to Golam Rasool is, in our view, the correct and proper finding. That being so, apart from other infirmities in the prosecution case and evidence referred to by the learned Magistrate in his judgment the order of acquittal is the only legal order that could be made in the case. We, therefore, dismiss the appeal.