DURGADAS RADHAKISAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two applications in revision preferred by accused Nos. 2 and 4 and Nos. 1 and 3, respectively, against the order of the Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad setting aside the order of discharge of these accused by the Additional City Magistrate of Ahmedabad, and ordering that the accused should be tried again by another First Class Magistrate to whom the case may be transferred by the District Magistrate.

(2.) The prosecution case against the four accused in substance is that these accused have committed ( an offence of cheating a number of people in Gujrat and in the Baroda State, inasmuch as they, in furtherance of a fraudulent scheme, made misrepresentations to people by which ignorant and Illiterate people were induced to go in for loans for very large amounts which the accused could not have paid. Out of the four accused in this case, No. 1, Durgadas, is the promoter of the scheme which is known as "The Delhi Syndicate Ltd." Accused No. 2 is the chief agent for Gujrat, the head office being at Delhi. Accused No. 3 is the general organizer and canvasser of the Syndicate, and accused No. 4 is the local agent of this Syndicate at Ahmedabad. It appears that this Syndicate was started at Delhi in January, 1929 and accused No. 1 was appointed as its secretary and. general manager. The Syndicate issued its articles of association as well as the memorandum of association and also forms of applications for loans to which were attached certain conditions, 28 in number, which were to govern the grant and the refund of these loans. The authorized capilalof this concern was Rs. 20,000 divided into eighty shares of Rs. 250 each; but the capital of Rs. 1,250 only was subscribed by three sharers of whom accused No. 1 and one Narayan Datta purchased one share each and one Shivnath purchased three shares. The object of the company was to advance money to poor and needy persons at a very cheap rate of interest, viz., one and a half per cent, per annum, which was to be repayable alter about five to eight years from the grant of the loan. It appears that this company did not flourish in Delhi where it was started, and about a year and a half after it was started, the company extended its operations to Gujrat and established a branch office at Ahmedabad with accused No. 1 as its local agent. As soon as it was established, certain leaflets were issued, and the forms of applications as well as the conditions, which were printed in English, Hindi and Urdu, were distributed among the people, and the people, being attracted by the cheap terms on which the loans were to be granted at once flocked in with applications for loans, and there was a regular rush not only on the part of the people at Ahmedabad but from different parts of Gujrat. It appears that one Nandlal Shah, the complainant in this case, doubted the genuine nature of this scheme and started certain enquiries about the person who started the scheme as well as about its nature. At the time when the operations of this Syndicate began in Ahmedabad, the promoter of the scheme, accused No. 1, was in jail and he arrived in Ahmedabad for the first time in July and his second visit to Ahmedabad was in the middle of August, and soon after that he was arrested in Ahmedabad.

(3.) The complaint in short is that the company itself is a fraudulent concern and the scheme itself amounted to cheat people and that there were various misrepresentations made by the accused to the people as well as lo the sub- agents who were appointed to canvass for the scheme in different parts of Gujrat. The complaint further says that the people were told that certain Congress leaders had put all their savings in the company with the result that there were crores of rupees as capital and that they would get the amount of the loan within a month from the date of their applications. It was also stated that accused No. 1 was falsely represented as the vice-president of the Congress Samiti and that he was arrayed against the capitalists for the benefit of the poor people.