EMPEROR Vs. YAGAFUR KARIMBAX PATHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The District Magistrate, Kolaba, has forwarded to this Court the papers in three cases pending in the Court of the First Class Magistrate Panvel and asks for directions under Section 185 of the Criminal Procedure Code as to the place in which and the Court by which the said cases ought to be tried. The accused in these three cases is one Y. Section Gafur Karimbax Pathan. He is said to belong to Shrinagar but has been living at Panvel, where he has been leading the life of a Fakir and calling himself a " Director of Mesmerism." On July 6, 1928, the accused sent a parcel by value payable post for Rs. 2-8-0 to one Vithal Shankar Gulve of Poona. On July 16, 1928, he sent a similar parcel by value payable post for the same amount to the Deputy Commissioner, Sialkot, and on the same day he sent a third parcel by value payable post for the same amount to the Deputy Commissioner, Hissar. The parcels contained nothing but a paper on which was written what purported to be the first lesson in a correspondence course in mesmerism. The addressee in each case paid the amount to the Post Office and in two cases the amounts were in due course paid by the Post Office to the accused at Panvel. The amount of the V. P. Parcel addressed to the Deputy Commissioner, Hissar, has been detained in the Post Office. In consequence of these transactions the accused was charged with three offences of cheating under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and the cases were being tried jointly. During the course of the trial the attention of the Magistrate was drawn to a decision of a single Judge of the Madras High Court in the case of Kaleeh, In re (1926) 52 M. L. J. 511. On the strength of this ruling the Magistrate came to the conclusion that he had no jurisdiction to try the cases and that they ought to be tried at Poona, Sialkot and, Hissar respectively. He accordingly submitted the papers to the District Magistrate for disposal and the District Magistrate, as already stated, has referred the matter to this Court under Section 185 of the Criminal Procedure Code, In our opinion the Magistrate is mistaken in holding that he has no jurisdiction to try these cases. The case of Kaleek, In re, is no doubt a case upon similar facts. The accused in that; case, who had received an order for four boxes of tea from the complainant, a resident of Hyderabad, despatched from Madras by value payable post four boxes containing not tea but sawdust. The point before the Court was whether the Madras Court had jurisdiction to try the accused on a charge of cheating. It was held that it had no jurisdiction, the reasons given being that so far as the complainant was concerned the deceit and the delivery in consequence of the deceit were complete when the money was handed over to the Post Office at Hyderabad, and the subsequent delivery by the Post Office to the accused was not a necessary ingredient of the offence. The Madras High Court has held in several cases that the word "consequence" which occurs in Section 179 of the Criminal Procedure Code must be taken to mean something which is a necessary ingredient of the offence. That has been laid down, for instance, in the case of Re Rambilas (1914) I.L.R. 38 Mad. 639. But that case was not approved of in Emperor V/s. Ramratan Chunilal (1921) I.L.R. 46 Bom. 641, s.c. 24 Bom. L.R. 46, where it was held by Macleod C. J. that the word "consequence" in Section 179 of the Criminal Procedure Code bears its ordinary grammatical meaning and is not to be restricted in its meaning to a consequence which is a necessary ingredient of the offence. The payment of the money to the accused in Panvel may not be technically a necessary ingredient of the offence of cheating as defined in Section 415 of the Indian Penal Code but quite obviously it is a consequence of the accused's act in posting these parcels. It was precisely the consequence which he must have intended. If, therefore, we take the word consequence in its ordinary grammatical sense it is clear that Section 179 gives the Panvel Court jurisdiction to try all the three cases. This is one way in which the case of Kaleeh, In re, may be distinguished so far as the Courts in this Presidency are concerned, viz., that it is based on a restricted interpretation of the word "consequence" which has not been approved of by our High Court.

(2.) But, with all deference to the learned Judge who decided that case, it appears to us that Section 179 and also Section 182 of the Criminal Procedure Code should be considered to give the Panvel Court jurisdiction quite apart from any question of the interpretation of the word "consequence" in the former section. The language of Section 179 is as follows:- When a person is accused of the commission of any offence by reason of anything which has been done, and of any consequence which has ensued, such offence may be inquired into or tried by a Court within the local limits of -whose jurisdiction any such thing has been done, or any such consequence has ensued.

(3.) The offence of cheating as defined in Section 415 of the Indian Penal Code consists in deceiving a person and dishonestly inducing the person deceived to deliver property. In a case such as the present it appears to us to be reasonable to hold that the act of deceiving and the act of inducing delivery of property are composite acts which begin with the delivery of the parcels to the Post Office for posting. It may, therefore, be properly said that the accused in this case is accused of the commission of the offence of cheating by reason of the delivery of these parcels to the Post Office in Panvel. That posting is in fact an essential part of the offence. Even if the parcels had not reached the addressees, or if the addressees had declined to pay, the posting of the parcels with the dishonest intention of getting payment on them would seem to amount to an attempt to commit the offence. In our opinion, therefore, Section 179 clearly applies. For the same reason it would appear that Section 182 of the Criminal Procedure Code would give jurisdiction to the Magistrate at Panvel. That section provides in the second clause thereof that where an offence is committed partly in one local area and partly in another and in the 4 clause thereof that where an offence consists of several acts done in different local areas, it may be inquired into or tried by a Court having jurisdiction over any of such local areas, The offence in this case, in our opinion, was committed partly in Panvel, by the posting of the parcels there, and partly in Poona, Sialkot and Hissar where the money was paid over by the addressees to the Post Office. The offence also consists of several acts done as regards the posting of the parcels in Panvel, as regards the inducing payment of money in the other places aforesaid. For both these reasons, therefore, Section 182 enables the cases to be tried in the Panvel Court.