SARAT CHANDRA MANDAL Vs. RAM SASHI ROY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule was issued calling upon the District Magistrate of 24 Pergannas and upon the opposite parties to show cause way the order passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, dated the 16 March 1922, confirming the order of the learned Subordinate Judge, should not be set aside and sanction granted to the petitioners under Section 195, Criminal Procedure Code, to prosecute the opposite parties on various charges of perjury and forgery.

(2.) The faces which have given rise to the application on which the Rule was issued are as fallows: On the 28 October 1919 a suit was instituted being Title Suit No. 233 of 1919, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of 24-Pargannas, First Court, by a Company called the Chitpur Golabari Company, Ltd., of which the Managing Agents are Messrs. Andrew Yule & Co., against three persons, named Srimati Alladi Dasi, Sarat Chandra Mandal and Sasi Bhusan Mandal for specific performance of an agreement for sale of certain lands for Rs. 10,000, alleged to have been executed by Srimati Alladi Dasi on the 18 May 1919, on receipt of a sum of Rs. 1,201 by way of earnest. The suit was not contested by Srimati Alladi Dasi bat the other two defendants, who were the roversionary heirs, defended the suit on the ground that the agreement in question bad not been executed by Srimati Alladi Dasi. The suit came on for hearing on the 26 July 1921 when the opposite parties Ram Sasi Roy and Kiran Chandra Ghose gave evidence in the causa to the effect that the agreement in question was executed on the 18 May, 4919 and that the sum of Rs. 1,201 was paid in currency notes which, amongst others, consisted in particular of two notes bearing numbers as follows: VB/81 14-20 for Rs. 500. VB/81 68788 for Rs. 500.

(3.) It transpired, however, from the evidence of a witness from the Currency Office, who was subsequently examined, that the carrency note for Rs. 500, which bore the No. VB/81 68788 was not in existence on the date of the said agreement and was in fact issued from the Currency Office more than two months after the said date. The suit itself was withdrawn on the 28 July 1921 on the ground that it had been prematurely instituted inasmuch as the period within which the agreement was to be performed had not expired on the date of the institution of the suit. The petitioners thereafter applied before the learned Subordinate Judge for sanction to prosecute a number of people including the opposite parties under various sections of the Indian Penal Code on the allegation that the agreement in question was a false and fabricated document and brought into existence long after the date it bore and that the opposite parties Ram Sasi Roy and Kiran Chandra Ghose? were guilty of perjury when they stated in the course of their evidence that the consideration mentioned in the agreement was paid in their presents. The learned Subordinate Judge, for the reasons given by him in his judgment, dated the 7 February 1922, was not satisfied that the agreement in question was a forgery. He thought that apparently a wrong number was noted against the currency note in question and that the wrong number had bean evidently taken from a hundred rupee note which had been given to Srimati Alladi Dasi at the time of the agreement. The matter was taken by the unsuccessful petitioners to the District Judge under the provisions of Section 195, Clause (6), Criminal Procedure Code, but the application to the District Judge did not succeed, he being of opinion that there was no reasonable ground for suspicion against the opposite parties on the materials placed before him.