SHANKAR SINGH GANDA SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order will dispose of five connected petitions all filed by the same petitioner Dr. Shankar Singh describing himself as the Managing Agent" of Hoshlarpur-Dasuya Bus Service Limited, Hoshlarpur. Three of the petitions are under Section 526, Criminal. P.C., and are for the transfer to some other district of three cases which are pending in the Court of the Additional District Magistrate at Hoshiarpur in which the petitioner is an accused person, the cases being under Sections 406, 408, 409 and 471A, Indian Penal Code, Section 384,, Penal Code, and Section 32 read with Section 36 of the Administration of Evacuee Property Act. The other two petitions are under Section 561A, Criminal Procedure Code, and are for the quashing of proceedings in the first and third of the above mentioned cases, the second case under Section 384, Penal Code, having apparently been overlooked by the petitioner in this connection, since the cases are all inter-connected and he wants all the proceedings against him to be quashed.

(2.) The petitioner and the other persons who are involved as accused in these cases are all apparently connected with the management of the Hoshiarpur-Dasuya Bus Service Limited, and there does not seem to be any doubt that the cases against them were started in a somewhat unusual and unorthodox manner. The original complaint was in the form of the letter addressed to the District Magistrate of Hoshiarpur by a gentleman named Suraj Parkash describing himself as the President of the District Transport Workers Union of Hoshiarpur. This letter is dated 12-11-1952 and it was apparently presented by Suraj Parkash in person to the learned District Magistrate, who apparently treated the letter as a complaint, and recorded the statements of Suraj Parkash and one Jiwan Singh who described himself as an Assistant Cashier in the Bus Company and thereafter on the same day ordered the issue of search warrants under Section 96, Criminal P. C., as a result of which the Police raided the Company's office and seized. all the books. The allegations in the complaint were that the-management of the company was keeping false account books and embezzling money which was. the property of the company by making false entries about payments to non-existing employees and showing actual employees as receiving larger wages than they were really receiving, and there are other allegations of this kind, including one of non-payment of the proper passenger tax, and it was also alleged that the shares of an evacuee named Ghulam Mohammad had been fraudulently transferred in the name of a Director of the company. It seems that the investigation of the Company's affairs was entrusted by the learned District Magistrate to the Police though no formal order for an enquiry by the Police under Section 202, Criminal P. C., appears to have been passed, and whether as a result of the investigation or not It seems that on 19-12-1952 Rura Ram Sharma, the Accountant of the company, appeared before the District Magistrate and made a comprehensive statement about the alleged misdeeds of the persons in charge of the company's affairs with the result that on that date the learned District Magistrate passed this order: The complaint and the above statement of the complainant along with the documents Exhibits P-1 to P-5 produced reveal commission of offence-under Sections 406, 408, 409, 417 and 420, Indian Penal Code, and offences under the Indian Income Tax Act, Indian Companies Act and Administration of Evacuee Property Act. I therefore direct Station House Office City to register a case on the basis of this complaint and the statement and investigate and take further necessary action. In other words, it seems that the learned District Magistrate decided that the earlier complaint of Suraj Parkash, which was in, any case very vague and obviously made by a person who did not have first-hand knowledge of the affairs of the company, should be shelved or otherwise abandoned, though no formal order of dismissal under 8. 203, Criminal P. C., was passed on it, and that instead the statement of Rura Bam Sharma, which was much more fully detailed and authoritative should be treated as a fresh complaint. Further more, in view of the nature of the charges, he evidently considered that the matter was not a suitable one for a private complaint and that the Police should register a case and take the matter up officially. In pursuance of this order, the case was registered by the Police on 19-12-1952, the statement of Rura Ram Sharma recorded by the District Magistrate being embodied in the first information report. As a result of the ensuing investigation, the three cases which the petitioner now seeks to have transferred to some other district were in due course instituted in the Court of the Additional District Magistrate.

(3.) The grounds on which the transfer is sought consist largely of allegations against the learned District Magistrate, whose bona fides are impugned, but they also include allegations against the learned Additional District Magistrate, particularly regarding harassment of the accused in such matters as bail. I must say at once on this view of the case that I should certainly be inclined to hold that there were grounds for transferring the cases to same other district if the learned District Magistrate who is attacked in these applications was still in charge of the district, since in my opinion it is extraordinary that he should have acted as he did on 12-11-1952 merely on such vague allegations as Suraj Parkash had put forward in his complaint, These allegations clearly principally concerned the authorities dealing with income-tax, passenger-tax and evacuee property which ought obviously to have been consulted before any steps at all were taken against the accused, and the remaining allegations about falsification in the company's accounts really only concerned the share-holders of the company, and I should have thought that even on these matters the Magistrate would only have taken action on being moved by some interested member of the company and not by a mere outsider. Even the subsequent order of the learned District Magistrate dated 19-12-1952 appears to indicate excessive zeal on his part, since he included in the offences which he considered were disclosed offences under the Income-tax Act and the Indian Companies Act, whereas the briefest study of the law relating to offences under these Acts would have revealed to him that a prosecution under the Income-tax Act can only be instituted on the complaint of an Inspecting Assistant Commissioner of the Income-Tax Department, and that offences under the Indian Companies Act are not cognizable. Moreover, although the Indian Companies Act itself apparently does not prescribe on whose complaint cognizance of an offence can be taken, the commentary to Section 278 of the Act clearly indicates that a complaint should only be entertained from the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies or from persons actually interested in the company. However, the learned District Magistrate in question has now been transferred to another district and his place has been taken by another officer of the Indian Administrative Service, and, I can see no reason why this new officer is not qualified to deal with these cases unless and until it is shown that he is taking an undue and improper interest in their subject-matter. Thus, as far as the applications for transfer go, I consider that it would be sufficient to order that the learned District Magistrate should himself deal with these cases and withdraw them from the court of the learned Additional District Magistrate.