HARENDRA CHANDRA BARORI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in this case Harendra Chandra Barori was a Sub-Deputy Magistrate at Dacca acting at the tirne also as a Special Magistrate under Ordinance 2 of 1942. He has been convicted under Section 161, Indian Penal Code for having taken a bribe of Rs. 10,000 from Rabindra Kumar Das (P.W. 1) on 12-4-1943. The bribe was given, according to the prosecution, to secure the acquittal of Rai Bahadur Satyendra Kumar Das and Hemendra Kumar Das, the father and uncle of the briber Rabindra Kumar Das, who at the time weje under trial before the petitioner in a case under the Defence of India Rules. The accused has been sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 1000 in default to suffer further three months rigorous imprisonment.

(2.) The accused was previously tried by the Additional District Magistrate of Mymensingh and convicted but on appeal the conviction and sentence were set aside by the Additional Sessions Judge of Mymensingh on the ground that the proceedings were void as there was no proper sanction for the prosecution.

(3.) Mr. Santosh Kumar Basu appearing on behalf of the petitioner has attacked the conviction on certain legal grounds and secondly by an argument which was substantially an argument applicable in our opinion to an appeal on facts against the conviction relating solely to the merits of the case and to the evidence. We will first dispose of the latter and then consider the more strictly legal points raised by the argument.