EMPEROR Vs. CHHOTALAL BABAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The point of law referred to us arises in the following state of facts. The accused, Chhotalal Baber, is a subject of the Cambay State. He lived in Cambay and there traded with his business partner, Ambalal Jethalal. In May 1910 the accused, conspiring with Ambalal, sent Ambalal to a certain professional forger, by name Somnath Ranchhod, living in Umreth, with instructions to instigate Somnath to forge a valuable security, namely a hhata: To facilitate the forgery, the accused sent his khata-hook with Ambalal to Somnath. Somnatb committed the forgery in pursuance of Ambalal s instigation. The accused was charged on these facts before the Additional Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad with the offence of abetment of forgery under Sections 467 and 109, Indian Penal Code, and the learned Judge, Mr. C. N. Mehta, has referred to us the question whether upon these facts the accused, not being a British subject, was amenable to the jurisdiction of the Ahmedabad Court. After a careful examination of the subject the Judge records his own opinion that the accused was not triable by the British Court.

(2.) In support of that opinion the learned Judge largely relied, and the accused s pleader before us has also relied, on this Court s decision in Reg. v. Pirtai (1873) 10 Bom. H.C.R. 356. It appears to me, however, that that decision, so far from assisting the present accused, indicates the line of reasoning upon which the present reference ought to be determined against him. For in that case the ratio decidendi that the then accused woman, a foreigner, was not triable by the British Court was that her instigation of the crime had been " wholly committed within the foreign territory." If, therefore, the present accused s offence was not wholly completed within Cambay limits, but, having been initiated there, was continued and completed within the- British territory of Umreth, then Pirtai s case would be authority for the view that the accused was triable at Ahmedabad; and the learned Government Pleader s argument is that this is the true view of the present case.

(3.) Turning to Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines abetment, and confining ourselves to that part of the definition with which alone we are now concerned, we find that "a person abets the doing of a thing who engages with one or more other person or persons in any conspiracy for the doing of that thing, if an act takes place in pursuance of that conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing." It will be seen that there are two requisites, first, the engaging with another, and, secondly, the doing of some act in pursuance of the conspiracy. Further, under Explanation 4 to Section 108 of the Indian Penal Code, the accused, who abetted Ambalal in abetting Somnath to forge, is punishable as an abettor of the forgery. Now, a Imitiedly, the accused s engaging with the intermediate conspirator, Ambalal, took place in Cambay, but under the definition that was not the complete offence of abetment: the offence was completed only when the consequent act was done. What, then, was that act in this case? Mr. Shah for the accused has urged that it should be regarded as consisting of the entrusting of the accused s khata book to Ambalal, but I cannot take that view. It appears to me that the act contemplated by the definition was in this case Ambalal s instigation of Somnath in Umreth. It is argued that this is to mistake the ultimate " thing done"-i. e. the final object of the conspiracy-for the intermediate act of mere facilitation; but I do not think so. The ultimate thing done here was Somnath s forgery of the khata, and, as I have shown, the accused is punishable as an abettor of that forgery. Thus the language of the Code seems to me not to conflict with, but to support the view that the act done in pursuance of the accused s conspiracy with Ambalal was, not the accused s own contemporaneous act of handing over his account-book to Ambalal, but Ambalal s act in instigating Somnath in Umreth.