BAKHATLAL Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. The facts of the case are that on 4th April 1928 in the grain market of the Notified Area Committee of Bhatapara the applicant had purchased some cart loads of wheat and while the same were being measured by two kathas bearing Nos. 274 and 275, they were seized by the police who found each of them to measure five tolas more of grain than the standard katha prescribed by the Notified Area Committee. The applicant was accordingly challaned under Section 265, I.P.C. for having fraudulently used a false katha measure and was convicted by Mr. B.L. Verma, Magistrate 2nd, Class, Baloda Bazar, and sentenced to three months rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 100. In appeal the District Magistrate, Baipur, maintained the conviction but increased the fine to Rs. 300 and remitted the sentence of imprisonment.

(2.) THE applicant has, therefore, come up in revision to this Court and his learned advocate urged that in the absence of any evidence or circumstances showing that the accused knew of the incorrectness of the katha measure in question when he used them, he could not be said to have used them fraudulently within the meaning of Section 265, I.P.C. It is no doubt established by the evidence on record in the case that the applicant did not himself possess any kathas, that those that were seized by police belonged to one Jeetmal from whom the accused had borrowed them on the day in question, and that these kathas were, as a matter of fact, verified by the Officers of the Notified Area Committee, on 21st March 1928, with the result that one of them was found to be correct and the other short by only two tolas. It is also proved by actual test at the trial that these two kathas, on a comparison with the standard one, measured five tolas more and therefore they were false measures within the meaning of Section 265, I.P.C.

(3.) IT is unfortunate that the learned District Magistrate has fallen into the same error in making a similar presumption for, after concurring with the finding of the first Court that the kathas in question were incorrect, the learned District Magistrate in para. 2 of his judgment states that: For the second question therefore whether the false kathas were used fraudulently I must find that they were so fraudulently used on the principle that a man must be presumed to know the natural result of his actions.