S SATYANARAYANA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I confess that this case is to my mind apt to nip any budding affection which one might have had for the Criminal P. C.. It arose out of a scheme to defraud the Bengal Nagpur Railway in connexion with the sale of used sleepers, the sale took place just four years ago and the fraud was discovered almost immediately after. The trial involved taking the evidence of some 50 witnesses and the consideration of a number of documents, but the volume of evidence, oral and documentary was not more than would be usual for the sort of fraud which is unfortunately not uncommon in a well-developed commercial community.

(2.) Nevertheless the trial took nearly two years and proceeded before three different Magistrates so that no Magistrate had the advantage of seeing all the witnesses and the Magistrate who actually delivered the judgment saw none of them. There is a division of the Bengal Nagpur Railway with its headquarters at Adra in charge of a District Engineer (D. E.) Mr. Morrison. His staff consists of two assistants, Mr. Bell, who acted as his personal assistant, and Mr. Baxter, the Assistant Engineer (A.E.) Lines; his department also includes a considerable office which is in charge of N.V. Ratnam, the Head Accountant, who was accused in this case but has been acquitted and to it belonged the accused Satyanarayana, the stores clerk, and an Assistant Stores clerk Muhammad Shariff. The division in charge of the D.E. is divided into a number of sections each in charge of a Permanent Way Inspector (P.W. I.). One such section is based on Adra and was in charge of the accused Mr. Woodhouse as P.W.I. His duties were principally executive but he had an office in charge of a clerk who was called the "Time Keeper" Asif Hussain. Under Mr. Woodhouse were two subordinates known as Section P.W. I. or S.E.P., one of whom Mr. Simpson had charge of the Adra yard and sidings and is the principal witness in the case.

(3.) The materials of the permanent way have. to be constantly and regularly renewed and this is the principal duty of the P.W. Is. and their subordinates. When a section of the line is re-sleepered with new sleepers all the old ones are replaced irrespective of their condition. They are classified according to their condition and taken back to some yard. The worst are classified as unserviceable and are either used as fuel or for rough purposes on the railway under the authority of the P.W.I. or are sold to railway employees or the public on the authority of the D.E. For the purposes of sale, an unserviceable sleeper is assumed to weigh one maund although in fact it weighs 10 or 15 seers more. The better sleepers described as second hand are classified in three categories A, B and 0 according to their quality and are used for patch repairs on main lines or on sidings or branch lines or are converted into narrow gauge sleepers. The weight of a second hand sleeper in reasonable condition is approximately twice that of an unserviceable one and the value, at any rate, to the railway company is very much more. Patch repairs arc carried out on the authority of the P.W.I. and it will be seen that every second hand sleeper employed in patch repairs releases a sleeper which would be classified as unserviceable. It is the practice of the B.N. Railway to mark second hand sleepers with two letters, one of them indicating the section of the line from which they were taken and the other category in which they were classified. On 20 of every month each P.W.I., has to prepare a return described as unserviceable released material account, which shows in various forms all dealings with unserviceable or released materials during the preceding month. This return is prepared in triplicate by carbon process and the original is kept by the P.W. L, one copy is sent to the D. E. and the other copy to the A.E. Lines.