G L SALWAN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution filed by G. L. Salwan which has unfortunately come up for hearing rather belatedly, since it was admitted by this Court on 10-4-1957.

(2.) THE petitioner challenges the vires of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance (No. 38) of 1944 under S. 4 of which an order was passed by the District Judge of Delhi on 19-3-1957 in connection with a criminal case which is pending against the petitioner and others on the basis of a case registered by the police under S. 120-B read with Ss. 420, 409 and 477-A, Indian Penal Code A charge-sheet was actually filed in connection with the case on 12-12-1956. (2) Briefly the background of the case is as follows: The petitioner is a displaced businessman evidently of some means from N. W. F. P. where apparently he had founded educational institutions for the public benefit. In Delhi in 1950 he founded a society which was registered under the Act of 1860 for the promotion of education called the "salwan Education Trust". There seems to be no doubt that a sum exceeding Rs. 5,00,000/- has been spent by the Trust on building, equipping and running a Boy's High School, a Girls' High School and a Montessori School in the suburb of Delhi largely populated by refugees and known as Karol Bagh. Some difficulties arose between the trustees and certain members of the staff employed in the schools with the result that Dr. Mehar Chand Mahajan, formerly Chief Justice of India, was appointed to Act as arbitrator and he delivered this award in April 1955 in which he found that although the schools were nominally being run by a trust, the trust was in fact dominated and run virtually by the petitioner alone who had spent more than Rs. 3,00,000/- out of his own pocket, the remaining Rs. 2,00,000/- having come in the form of Government grants. At the same time it was found that the petitioner had built on the school property premises which were used by him for carrying on various businesses.

(3.) IT seems that the local authorities came to the conclusion that the petitioner had been using the money furnished by the Government in the form of grants for the purposes of the schools for his own private purposes with the result that a criminal case was registered against him after investigation by a Special Brach of the Police and also a civil suit has been filed against him by the Deputy Commissioner of Delhi. The criminal cases has now been committed to the Court of Session for trial.