MAHAMAD YASIN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner who is a young man of 27 has been convicted under section 420 I P. C and sentenced to undergo R. I. for 3 months. The allegation against him is that on 20.1.1964 at about 11 p. m. he gave a telephone call to P. W. 1, the manager of the N. C. D. C. Colliery and made a representation that he was deputed by the Rani Saheba of Talcher to make a request to him for helping her with some transport as her vehicle on the way to Meramundali had a break and she was stranded. It appears that Rani Saheba of Talcher was known to P. W. 1 from before and in the course of conversation P. W. 1 was made to believe that the petitioner required the transport for the Rani Saheba and that Rani Saheba was in fact stranded on the road.

(2.) THE evidence on record firmly proves that P. W. 4 who acted as the driver of the jeep was an employee of the N. C. D. C. Colliery and worked under P. W. 1 who was the manager of that concern. It is also not disputed that all along during the drive, when the jeep was in the service of the petitioner it was this P. W. 4 who drove it and it was never given in his possession. It may be that it was he at whose direction the jeep was driven from place to place, but that fact by itself can be no evidence of the fact that in the course of that movement there had been any delivery of the jeep to him. The word 'delivery' as used in Section 420, I. P.O. conveys the import and implication of the change of hands of the property or its transfer from one person to the other either directly or indirectly. In this case there is no evidence that at any point of time the jeep was delivered by P. W. 4 to the petitioner. The mere movement of the jeep in his service from one place to another while it was being driven by P. W. 4 even if done at the instance of the petitioner cannot amount in law or in fact to the delivery of the jeep to him. In that view of the matter it cannot be held that the petitioner cheated P. W. 1 and thereby dishonestly induced him to deliver the jeep to him. It is true that what the section requires in that the delivery may be to any person and not necessarily to the person who causes deception, but the delivery got effected by him must be for the gain of the person who commits deception; and in any case the word 'person' as used in this context cannot mean the man who is the target of deception or anybody else, who no delivery holds it on his behalf. In the present case there is no material to suggest that the delivery of the jeep by P. W. 1 to P. W. 4 was the result of any deception practised by the petitioner. What the petitioner gained as a result of the deception practised by him was the advantage of getting the use of the jeep for his service and not the delivery of the jeep to any employee of P. W. 1 for the purpose of driving it.