EMPEROR Vs. ANANT KUMAR BANERJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused persona were placed on their trial with four others before the Sessions Judge of Howrah upon charges of forging, and conspiring to forge, currency notes. The Jury was unanimous in acquitting all the accused persons, and the leaned Judge accepted their verdict in regard to the other four, but referred the case as against these two men to this Court under the provisions of Section 307, Criminal Procedure Code.

(2.) A abort account of the incidents leading up to the trial will help to make the case more intelligible. On March 18th, 1918, a forged currency note for Rs. 5 was tendered and accepted at Bagnan Railway Station, a station on the Bengal Nagpur Railway. When it was found that the note was spurious, it was sent to the Railway Police, and, later, Sub Inspector Panna Lal Roy of Bagnan Thana took up the enquiry. On April 1st, 1918, Panna Lal searched the house of the accused Anant at village Chandbag and found two five-rupee notes, one of which was forged, A man named Shibkali Chatterjee had given to Panna Lal the information which lead him to search Anant s house on April 1st, and the same man handed over to him on April 16th, a post card, marked Exhibt II, whish is said to establish a connection between Anant and Dhiraj. On April 19th, 1918, Inspector Darpa Narain Singh was placed in charge of the investigation. It is not necessary to follow all the details of his proceedings, but it may be remarked that by the time this trial was begun, the Police were in possession of no less than 84 forged notes of five rupees each, all taken, according to an expert, from the same block. On January 27th, 1949, Anant s house was searched a second time by Sub-Inspector Panna Lal Roy and this time the charred fragments of some five rupee notes are said to have been found. Anant was arrested and taken to the head-quarters of the Sub-division at Uluberia where he made a statement on the following day. He was remanded to custody, but released on bail on February 3rd and on February 13th he made a second statement. In the interval, he is said to have given information to the Police on various points. For the present, those are the principal points in the story against Anant. 2. Dhiraj Chandra Pal s family house is at a village called Bhowanipur, but he is said to live generally at the house of his father in law at Bhadreswar, A search was made of that house on January 27th, 1919, without result: then a second search was made on February 5th and this time it is said that inside a box were found some pearls wrapped in a piece of paper similar to the paper on which forged notes were printed. Dhiraj, it may be noted, was not present at this search. Then, as the result of the information supplied by Anant, the Inspector traced a man, named Lakhan, who had served in the house at Bhadreswar, to his home in Orissa. This Lakhan was brought to Calcutta, where he made some disclosures and on March 17th, he showed to the Police a tank into which the press had been thrown, and on the morning of the 18th the component parts of a press were recovered from the tank in the presence of witnesses. Those are the salient points in the story against Dhiraj.

(3.) Both the accused say that they are innocent of the charges preferred against them, Anant does not admit that the charred fragments were found in his house, on January 27th: he urges that the statements said to have been made by him are not admissible; and that the evidence given by Lakhan is the evidence of an accomplice and unworthy of credit. Dhiraj says that he knows nothing about the packet of pearls, and he does not claim the pearls; he denies having any correspondence with Anant; he also attacks the evidence of Lakhan, and he says he is in no way responsible for what was found in the tank. He also pleads that at the time when the notes were being forged--the last quarter of 1917--he was laid up with a broken leg at Bhowanipur.