EMPEROR Vs. RAM AUTAR LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The learned Sessions Judge of Patna by his letter dated 1 July 1941 has sent up this case under Section 307, Criminal P.C., recommending that the accused Ramautar Lal should be convicted for offences under Secs.409 and 477A, Penal Code. The trial was held with the aid of jury, who by a majority verdict of three to two were in favour of the acquittal of the accused. The facts of the case are somewhat complicated and it is necessary to state them as briefly as possible in order to appreciate the questions which arise for consideration.

(2.) The accused, Ram Autar Lal, was a clerk in the Patna Collectorate and appears to have been employed at all material times as an Assistant Nazir and as such in charge of the accounts department of the Nazarat. His duty was to make entries in three registers known as the general cash book, register No. V and the remittance register. The evidence discloses that under the rules framed by the Government all sums received in or paid out of the Nazarat must be entered in the general cash book. At the same time subsidiary registers are maintained for particular kinds of transactions for instance in Patna the system is that in register No. V must be entered details of the sums received from certificate debtors in cases under the Public Demands Recovery Act but only when ordered by the certificate officer to be received by the Nazir, to this register are also posted those sums which are received by the Nazir under the orders of the Collector on the dates fixed for the sales for arrears of land revenue as well as earnest moneys received by the Nazir from auction bidders in sales held for recovery of arrears of land revenue and cess, but again only when ordered by the officer in charge. As is to be expected the rule is stringent that any money received in the Nazarat should be received by nobody except by the Nazir himself. Before he receives the cash a cheque receipt in the prescribed form is granted to the payer. Bach receipt has a serial number on it and the number of this receipt is shown in the general cash book or the subsidiary register as the case may be and is written out by the accountant. Another stringent rule is that on no account may any sum which is not passed through the hands of the Nazir be entered in the general cash book or in any of the subsidiary registers.

(3.) From time to time the Nazarat has to remit sums to the Imperial Bank for deposit there. The system of remitting these sums is that entries of the sums proposed to be remitted are made in the remittance register which is sent along with the money and the proper chalans to the Imperial Bank. After the money has been received in the bank the bank's receipt stamp is placed on the remittance register as well as on the chalans (and on the chalan lists) and the receipted copies of the chalans together with the remittance register are returned to the Nazarat.