EMPEROR Vs. MOHIT KUMAR MUKERJEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the Fifth Criminal Sessions of the High Court for 1924, Mohit Kumar Mukerjee, Bankim Chandra Ghose and Surendra Nath Shaha were tried before me under Secs.120B and 471 of the Indian Penal Code on a charge of conspiring-dishonestly or fraudulently to use as genuine a certain receipt for Rs. 50,000, when they knew or had reason to believe that the receipt was a forged document, in consequence of which conspiracy the said document was so used as aforesaid. The receipt in question purported to acknowledge the payment of a sum of Rs. 50,000 as salami in respect of a sub-lease of certain mining rights in lands of which the firm of Dickie & Co. were the lessees. Dickie and Co. became insolvent, and in the course of the insolvency proceedings the Official Assignee became aware of a claim which had been preferred by the accused Bankim and Suren that the accused Mohit, as one of the partners of Dickie & Co., had executed in their favour a sub-lease of the said mining rights. An order was obtained by the Official Assignee, therefore, to examine the three accused under Section 36 of the Insolvency Act (III of 1909). The accused were served with a summons to produce inter alia "any books and documents in connection with the said alleged payment by them or either of them of Rs. 50,000 to any member or members of the said insolvent firm for the purpose of obtaining the "above lease". In the coarse of the examination of Suren, who stated that the receipt in question was given by Mohit to Bankim and afterwards was retained by the witness, the receipt was tendered by the Official Assignee and admitted as an exhibit in the insolvency proceedings. In his examination on the same day Bankim stated that "it was arranged that Suren and I should advance monies in equal shares. Mohit told me that he would not execute <JGN>Page</JGN> 2 of 6 a registered lease in our favour as the lease in his favour had not been registered. He said that he would not give us a receipt for Rs. 50,000.

(2.) Q. That is all that you hold now? Yes, at that time. A. copy of the lease from Mr. Greet to Mohit was sent to us in May 1921. I had the lease drawn up in favour of Suren and myself on the same lines as Mr. Creet's lease, and sent it to Mohit for approval.

(3.) Q. What happened after that? We pressed Mohit to return the draft approved, and he returned it to us approved on the 11 August.