EMPEROR Vs. RAMNARAYAN AMARCHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by two persons who were convicted by the First Class Magistrate of Poona. It was transferred by this Court for hearing from the Court of the Sessions Judge of Poona to this Court.

(2.) The case relates to a Company which for brevity s sake is called the Poona Mill. It had been working as a Mill from about the year 1894 with not very fortunate results, though it survived until 1915, in which year the Company went into liquidation and has since been wound up. The accused were for a good many years the Agents, Secretaries and Treasurers of the Company, and it is in relation to the balance-sheets for the years 1912 and 1913 that criminal accusations have been made against them. I need not go into details further than this: the charges in relation to the balance-sheet for 1912 were based on the allegation that in that year the mill had not by its working earned a profit, but that a profit was shown in the balance-sheet and that in so doing and in taking the profit declared, the accused, who, it is said, were really responsible for the preparation of the balance-sheet, committed the offences of cheating and criminal misappropriation. When the balance-sheet for 1913 took its final shape which was not until June 1914, the new Companies Act had come into operation, and under that Act in virtue of Section 282 it is a criminal offence to wilfully make a false statement in a balance-sheet. No charge under this section was possible in relation to the balance-sheet for 1912, but this was the charge made in regard to the balance-sheet for 1913. The trial and the appeal had a somewhat unfortunate course. At the trial itself a very large mass of evidence was recorded and a large number of details were minutely inquired into. The Magistrate has dealt with this mass of evidence and with these details in a lucid way, but it does seem to us that much of the evidence and many of the details might have been spared had there been a more pains-taking and intelligent inquiry into the affair before it was brought into the Magistrate s Court. As the result of the trial before the Magistrate which, considering the mass of evidence he had to deal with, was not unduly prolonged, the accused were convicted of all the charges. After the appeal was transferred to this Court there was a most unfortunate delay duo to the preparation of translations of the many papers. We are not concernod with the cause of that delay at the moment. But it has attracted our notice and I certainly do profoundly regret that such a delay should have occurred in the disposal of a criminal appeal in this Court.

(3.) When charges were framed in the Magistrate s Court, exception was taken to them on behalf of the accused. It was urged that there could not be a joint trial of the charges relating to the balance sheet of 1912 with the chargo relating to the balance-sheet of 1913. It was argued for the prosecution, as we think most mistakenly, that the joint trial could proceed, because the offences relating to those balance-sheets could be regarded as parts of the same transaction. We think not, and the result is that the trial is illegal and the conviction cannot be upheld.