STATE Vs. BANSHILAL LUHADIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We have four criminal matters, one appeal and three revisions, all of which have been filed by the State and arise out of similar facts. The appeal arises out of the judgment dated the 25th October, 1958, of the Additional Sessions Judge, Jaipur City, Jaipur, acting as Special Judge under the Prevention of Corruption Act (No. 2) of 1947 (hereinafter called the Act of 1947), by which Banshilal Luhadia and one other person Sumatimal were acquitted of an offence under Section 5(2) of the Act of 1947 and for the abetment thereof respectively in case No. 8 of 1957 which was tried on the merits. By extremely brief orders of the same date but apparently based on the reasoning which was contained in the judgment in case No. 8, three similar complaints against Banshilal Luhadia in cases Nos. 6 and 5 and Sumatimal in case No. 7 of 1957, out of which revisions Nos. 29, 30 and 31 of 1959 arise respectively, were dismissed without a trial and being bad for want of previous sanction which ground was raised on behalf of the accused and upheld by the learned Special Judge in all the four cases. It would thus appear that case No. 8 of 1957 was thrown out on both grounds after a full-fledged trial while the three other cases fell to be thrown out on the preliminary ground of want of valid sanction.

(2.) The facts out of which appeal No. 96 of 1959 arises may be stated at some length as that case was decided by the trial court on the merits. The accused Banshilal Luhadia, who is an advocate of this Court, was the Chairman of the District Board, Jaipur, at the relevant time, having been elected to that office on the 20th May, 1953, and was as such in receipt of an honorarium of Rs. 300/ p.m. Subsequently on the 26th January, 1956, he resigned from that office when he was elected as a member of the Parliament, but he still continued to be a member of the board until the 24th January, 1958, when a new board came to be sworn in and took office. After Luhadia ceased to be the Chairman of the Board, certain complaints were brought to the notice of the State Government that the accounts of the Board were in a very unsatisfactory condition. Thereupon an officer named Yadram Chaturvedi (P. W. 17) was deputed by the Government to audit the accounts of the Board and submit his report. In this report (Ex. P-82) several irregularities were reported to have been committed by Luhadia and a case was registered against him and investigation commenced by the police, but no case appears to have been made out against the accused with respect to the matters mentioned in that report. During the investigation of that case, however, it was discovered that on the 23rd December, 1954, Luhadia had with the help of the other accused Sumatimal obtained an illegal gratification in the shape of a brokerage commission, amounting to Rs. 125/- in respect of an investment of rupees one lac which stood deposited in a fixed deposit account carrying interest at the rate of 3 1/2 per cent. per annum in the Jaipur1 branch of the Bikaner Bank and had matured on the 5th July, 1954, and had then been placed in a call deposit account for a period of three months at 2 1/2 per cent per annum. The case in this connection as disclosed at the trial, put succinctly, was that Luhadia had manoeuvred the demand for the payment of the commission to him from the Bank authorities of the Jaipur Branch (among whom the name of V.R. Jindal P. W. 1 Assistant Manager figures primarily and prominently) with the result that they applied for and obtained permission of the competent authority at the Head Office to pay the said commission to Luhadia (vide Exs. P6, 7 and 8 dated the 19th and 23rd August and 2nd September, 1954, respectively). The case of the prosecution further was that the said commission was then paid by a cheque Ex. P-9 for Rs. 125/-bearing No. M.C.071089 and dated the 4th December, 1954, by the Bikaner Bank in favour of Luhadia which was first issued as an order cheque but later converted into a bearer one at the oral request of Luhadia and the same was encashed by Sumatimal, the other accused, on his (Luhadia's) behalf on the 23rd December J954, and deposited in his personal account (Ex, P-12) with the same bank on the same day. The Government was in due course moved to grant sanction for the prosecution of Luhadia and this was granted on the 13th July, 1957, and is Ex. P-114. Thereafter the accused were challaned in the court of the Special Judge on the 21st August, 1957, and eventually acquitted as stated above.

(3.) Both accused pleaded not guilty and denied to have committed the offences with which they were charged. The defence of Ludhadia was that the deposit of rupees one lac in question was dealt with by him in the normal course of routine and that he had neither asked for the alleged commission from the bank on this deposit nor he had received any such commission. His defence further was that he had sent a sum of Rs. 125/-in cash with Sumatimal on the 23rd December, 1954, for being deposited with his over-draft account with the Bikaner Bank and that it was this sum which had been deposited in his account and that that had nothing to do with the commission alleged to have been paid to him by cheque. Accused Sumatimal who, it may be pointed out here, is a relation of Luhadia being his father's real sister's grandson, supported Luhadia in his aforesaid defence and admitted that he had received a sum of Rs. 125/- from Luhadia on the 23rd December, 1954, for being deposited in the latter's account with the Bikaner Bank and he had deposited the same accordingly through the pay-inslip Ex. P-11. He also admitted that the Assistant Bank Manager of the Bikaner Bank, Jaipur Branch, P. W. 1 Jindal had given him a cheque for Rs. 125/-on the 23rd December, 1954, and that he had encashed the same and pocketed that amount himself but that money had nothing to do with the amount of Rs. 125/ that he had deposited in the account of Luhadia (Ex. 12). Apart from this defence on the merits, a further contention was raised on behalf of Luhadia in all the four cases that the sanction obtained for his prosecution vide Ex. P-114 in case No. 8 (and similar sanctions in the other three cases) was entirely invalid and inoperative in law, and, therefore, the trial court had no jurisdiction to take cognizance of the cases against him. As we have stated above, this plea prevailed with the learned trial Judge and as case No. 8 of 1957 had meanwhile been fully tried, the determination of the question of the validity of the sanction having been deferred until the decision of the case itself, the learned Judge dismissed this case and acquitted the accused both on the plea of sanction and on the merits. The other three cases had somehow not proceeded to trial chiefly because of the request of the prosecution itself and it appears that arguments on the plea of sanction were heard in all the four cases together on the 11th October, 195S, and as that plea prevailed with the learned Judge, he dismissed the other three cases on the preliminary ground alone.