EMPEROR Vs. GOPAL RAGHUNATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by accused No. 1, Gopal, against his conviction, and sentence of five years rigorous imprisonment under Section 489B, Indian Penal Code, by the Sessions Judge of Nasik. The first point of law raised before us on his behalf is that the joinder of the charge of which he has been convicted, with the other charges, was illegal, and is not covered by Section 239 of the Criminal P. C..

(2.) The case for the prosecution was that the appellant, accused No. 1, with two others, accused Nos. 2 and 3, acquitted in the lower Court, were all privy to the counterfeiting and passing of false currency notes, and committed offences under Secs.489 Art. 489 B and 489 D of the Indian Penal Code. The committing Magistrate had charged all three of them with offences under these three sections. Before the trial commenced in the Court of Session, the learned Sessions Judge elaborated the charges into, first, a conspiracy under these three sections, alternatively with offences in the course of the same transaction under Section 489 D. He further charged accused Nos. 1 and 2 with offences under Section 489A, and lastly accused No. 1 alone with an offence under Section 489B. In the result, excepting the conviction of the appellant, accused No. 1, on the last charge, the trial resulted in the acquittal of all the accused on all the other charges.

(3.) It is argued for the appellant that the joinder was illegal, the offences charged numbering more than three, and in any case they caused serious prejudice to the appellant by letting in evidence which would not have been admissible, had the present charge under appeal, under which alone he was convicted, been tried separately. For the Crown it is contended these charges form part of the same transaction, and are, therefore, covered by Section 239, Clause (d), of the Criminal P. C., as well as by Section 235.