SHANTI SAROOP GUPTA Vs. CHANDRA KANT BOLE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for quashing the prosecution of the petitioner for offences under Sections 406/409, Indian Penal Code, pending before a Munsif-Magistrate at Dhanbad.

(2.) ON the 1st of March, 1968. the opposite party filed a complaint before the Sub-divisional Magistrate, Dhanbad, to the effect that he carried on coal business under the name and style Messrs Narang Brothers, having its branch office at Agra, and the petitioner was his manager and in charge of his coal depot at Firozabad. According to the arrangement, the opposite party was to despatch coal/coke from Dhanbad to be taken delivery of by the petitioner at Firozabad and after the goods had been sold, the petitioner was to send the sale proceeds to him at Dhanbad along with the statement of accounts. That eight wagons of coal/coke were despatched by the opposite party from Dhanbad to Firozabad of which delivery was taken by the petitioner who sold almost the entire coal/coke received by him for a huge sum of money, but paid only a portion of the money out of the sale proceeds to the opposite party. It was stated by the opposite party that in spite of repeated demands by him, the petitioner has failed to make up the deficit amount due to him. The opposite party sent his representative to the place of the petitioner at Firozabad but the latter refused to make payment of the balance of the price of the coal/coke already sold by him and also refused to hand over the remaining stock and did not submit the accounts. The Subdivisional Magistrate, Dhanbad, took cognizance of the complaint under the aforesaid sections of the Indian Penal Code and transferred the case to the file of a Munsif-Magistrate for disposal.

(3.) LEARNED Counsel for the opposite party, relying upon State of Madhya Pradesh v. K.P. Ghiara AIR 1957 SC 196, contended that the courts at Dhanbad had also jurisdiction to try the offence. But there is no force in his submission inasmuch as in the above case (AIR 1957 SC 196) it was not known where the offence of embezzlement was committed at Bombay or Nagpur Section 182, Code of Criminal Procedure, was applied and the courts at Nagpur were held to have jurisdiction to enquire into the offence whereas in the present case, on the petition of complaint itself the goods were received and sold by the petitioner at Firozabad and as such, on the case of the opposite party, the embezzlement of the amount must have also taken place there. It is not stated in the petition of complaint that the petitioner ever came to Dhanbad after he had received and sold the goods and spent some amount there. It seems to us that the offence can only be tried by a court which has territorial jurisdiction over Firozabad.