LABH SINGH Vs. THE STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) LABH Singh Petitioner, who was Clerk in the Sub -Post Office at Khanna, has been convicted and sentenced by the Special Judicial Magistrate, Patiala, under Sections 420, 468 and 471, read with Section 109 of the Indian Penal Code, for having abetted the commission of offences of cheating, forgery and use of a forged document as genuine by his co -accused. Two other persons, who had been tried jointly with Labia Singh, had been acquitted by the Magistrate as their identity as accomplices of the Petitioner had not been established.

(2.) DURING the hearing of the appeal filed by the Petitioner in the Court of Session at Patiala, all the facts alleged against him had been admitted and there were no arguments on the merits of the case. The only point of law urged on behalf of the Appellant before the Sessions Judge was that as the principal offenders had been acquitted, there could be no question of the conviction of the abettor. Reliance had in this connection been placed by the Petitioner's counsel on the Supreme Court ruling in Faguna Kanta Nath v. The State of Assam : A.I.R. 1959 S.C. 673, where the Hon'ble Judges had been pleased to oteserwe as. follows:

(3.) THERE was no finding in the case in hand by the Special Judicial Magistrate that the main offences of cheating, forgery and use of a forged document as genuine had not been committed. The finding only was that the identity of the persons committing those main offences was known only to the Petitioner and that the prosecution had not been able to adduce enough evidence to connect the persons arraigned before it as principal offenders with the commission of the main crime. The Petitioner had also admitted before the Sessions Judge during the hearing of the appeal that these offences had been committed. Certain amounts had been withdrawn from the savings fund account of Bhagat Singh, P.W. 10, on the basis of forged withdrawal forms. The Petitioner had identified the persons who had impersonated the depositor on different occasions. The Petitioner had identified these unknown persons as Bhagat Singh. There could, therefore, be no doubt that the offences of forgery and cheating, etc., had been committed by someone known only to the Petitioner. The Petitioner, who had identified those main offenders as Bhagat Singh depositor, was keeping the information to himself and the prosecution had failed to establish the identity of the principal offenders. If the real culprit has got off because of the non -cooperative attitude of the Petitioner, it would not mean that the Petitioner had not abetted the commission of the main offence. The Supreme Court ruling in Faguna Kanta Nath's case (supra) is not of any help to the Petitioner as the finding in that case was that no offence had been committed by the principal accused and that there could, therefore, be no abetment of an offence if it had never been committed. In the case in hand, the main offences of cheating and forgery had admittedly been committed by some persons unknown to us and if they have got off because we could not trace them out correctly that would be no reason for acquitting the abettor when his identity was not at all a matter of any doubt and when the abettor had enabled the main offenders known only to himself to cheat by impersonating the depositor Bhagat Singh, P.W., and by forging the depositor's signatures on some application forms for withdrawal of money from the Saving Bank account of Bhagat Singh, P.W.