RAM CHANDRA PRASAD Vs. STATE OF SIKKIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, whose surety-bond executed for the appearance of an accused before Court has been forfeited and who has accordingly been called upon to pay the; penalty thereof, has come up in revision against the orders of forfeiture and imposition of penalty. The bond was taken by a Judicial Magistrate and was for appearance? in that Court, but has been forfeited by the Additional Sessions Judge, to whose Court the case of the accused was subsequently transferred for trial by an order of the Sessions Judge. The main ground urged by Mr. N. K. P. Saraf, learned Counsel for the petitioner, in support of the petition and against the impugned orders is that the bond, having been furnished in the Court of Judicial Magistrate and being for appearance in that Court, could not be forfeited by the Additional Sessions Judge, even though the case might have been assigned to him for disposal by an order of transfer.

(2.) THE question as to whether a bond for the appearance of an accused before a Court can be forfeited by such Court only where the accused was required to appear, or whether it can also be forfeited by the Court which has taken the bond, though for appearance in another Court, or whether it can also be forfeited by the Court to which the case may subsequently be transferred by commitment or otherwise, is far from settled and certain, as will appear from the vast mass of case-law clustering around Section 514 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This led the Law Commission to recommend restructuring of the provisions in its 41st Report on the Code wherein it has been observed as hereunder (at page 330, paragraph 42. 2) :

(3.) THESE recommendations have resulted in recasting of the relevant provisions in Section 44 of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, providing expressly that a bond for appearance before a particular Court can be forfeited only by that Court or by the Court to which the case has. been subsequently transferred. The new Cod-i of 1973, however, has not yet been extend ed to Sikkim where we are still governed by the earlier Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. Let me, therefore, con-sider whether under Section 514 of the Code of 1898, the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge, being a transferee Court, could forefeit the bond of the petitioner,