RAJ LAL DATA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application in revision by one Raj Lal Data against the judgment and order of the learned Sessions Judge of Mahasu and Sirmur, dated 16 6 1951, upholding his conviction by the learned Additional District Magistrate of Nishan under Section 161, read with Section 116, I. P. C., and the sentence of two months' rigorous imprisonment and Rs. 200/ fine, or further two months' rigorous imprisonment in default of payment of fine. He has been found to have unsuccessfully offered a bribe of Rs. 15/ to the Head Clerk o the Divisional Forest Officer of Nahan.

(2.) THE petitioner is a 'kaththa' contractor and had purchased some 'Khair' trees from certain Zamindars. According to a notification of the Chief Commissioner of Himachal Pradesh, before the felling of trees owners have first to get their land demarcated by the revenue authorities and then to apply to the Divisional Forest Officer to get the trees marked. This is obviously a necessary safeguard since Zamindari trees do often stand cheek by jowl with trees of the forest department. On 14 applications on behalf of Zamindars, who had sold trees to the petitioner, demarcation was done by the revenue authorities, and thereafter the applications were presented on 26 2 1951 at the office of the Divisional Forest Officer, Nahan) for the next step of getting the trees marked. The applications were presented by the petitioner's clerk Rabal Singh to the Head Clerk Vishnu Das Gupta. The Head Clerk put up an office note that five of the applications were in order but not the remaining nine for want of signatures of all Zamindars on whose behalf each of them purported to be. The Divisional Forest Officer ordered the five good applications to be sent to the Range Officer for marking the trees and the nine defective ones to be returned to the revenue authorities for verification.

(3.) AFTER a while the petitioner again went into the Head Clerk's room, and it is on the determination of what transpired at this stage between the two that the guilt or the innocence of the petitioner depends. Before referring to the prosecution and defence versions of the occurrence, it might with advantage be stated here that immediately thereafter, within five minutes according to the petitioner himself, he was called by the Divisional Forest Officer and shown one Rs. 10/ and another Rs. 5/ currency note and a bus ticket in which they were wrapped and asked whether he had offered the currency notes as a bribe to the Head Clerk.