SANKARLAL AGARWALLA Vs. THE STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a revision petition against the appellate judgment of the Sessions Judge of Sambalpur, maintaining the conviction of the Petitioner under Section 411, Indian Penal Code by a First Class Magistrate of Sambalpur. but reducing the sentence passed on him from 6 months to 3 months imprisonment.

(2.) THE charge against the Petitioner was that he dishonestly received and retained a packet of milk powder belonging to the Block Development Officer, Kuchinda, knowing or having reason to believe the same to be stolen property.

(3.) MR . D. Sahu for the Petitioner challenged the findings of fact of the two lower courts. He urged firstly that there was no evidence to show that the packet was "stolen property" inasmuch as the person in whose charge it was kept in the Third Class Waiting Hall at Bamulda Railway Station, viz. Nilambar Behera was not examined as a witness. Secondly, he urged that the identity of the packet recovered from the shop Kalishankar with the packet that was addressed to the Block Development Officer, Kuchinda, was not established. I do not think on those questions of fact there are sufficient grounds for me to disturb the concurrent findings of the two lower courts. The evidence of the Gram Sevak (p.w. 2) shows clearly that the damaged packets were kept in the Third Class Waiting Hall on the 26th July 1958 in charge of one Nilambar Behera and that at about 1 p.m on the same day when he was removing them to the godown nearby he noticed that one packet was missing. Even in the absence of the evidence of Nilambar Behera, therefore, it is open to the court to hold that the packet was "open" by some unknown person. Mr. Sahu's argument that Nilambar might have handed over the packet to the Petitioner and that the Petitioner might have accepted it in good faith is a mere conjecture. The Gram Sevak was in charge of the packet and he never gave any authority to Nilambar Behera to hand over the packet to anyone else. In the circumstances it should be held that the packet was dishonestly removed from the third Class Waiting Hall with or without the connivance of Nilambar Behera and that it was "stolen property".