PHOOL CHAND Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS application under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (No. 2 of 1974), hereinafter to be shortly referred to as the Cr. P. C. , has been moved on behalf of the brothers, namely, Phool Chand Sharma and Gopal Prasad Sharma, in the following circumstances.

(2.) IT is alleged that these two brothers, during the period, June to September 1980, made cheques to each other as payees, drawn on the New Bank of India, Sinsini, that these cheques were delivered by them to the Manager, State Bank of India, Bharatpur Branch, for collection, that the said Manager credited the amount of these cheques in their respective accounts immediately without using for the necessary advise from the drawee bank and that when these cheques were sent to the then Manager of the drawee bank at Sinsini for clearance, the latter, instead of immediately dishonouring them and sending the necessary advice in that behalf to the State Bank of India Bharatpur Branch, set over them, for an unreasonably long time with the intention of causing wrongful gain to the petitioners. Eventually, all the cheques were dishonoured. The case of the prosecution in a nut-shell is that these two brothers in conspiracy with the then Manager of the New Bank of India, Sinsini Branch and the Manager of the State Bank of India, Bharatpur Branch, cheated the State Bank of India of an amount of over one million rupees.

(3.) I may straight away refer to this Court's order dated, June 10 and point out that no condition was "imposed" by this Court while granting bail to the petitioners. On the other hand, what this Court did was, as the said order would speak for itself, to grant bail to the petitioners till August 16, 1982, as prayed on their behalf, to enable them to deliver on their Suo-moto undertaking to make arrangements for payment to the State Bank of India of the entire amount which is the subject matter of alleged cheating. As already stated, the petitioners did not comply with their own undertaking; and instead filed a petition in the Supreme Court for special leave to appeal from the order of this court. The said petition has since been dismissed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has not issued any direction to this Court in the matter of waiving the condition said to have been imposed by it. On the other hand, it dismissed the Special Leave Petition with the observations that "it will be open to the petitioners to move the High Court for waiving the condition that has been imposed by it". Now that the instant application, styled as an application under section 482 Cr. P. C. has been made, this Court must proceed to decide it on its merits.