Ram Prasad Guru vs Emperor

Jwala Prasad, J.—Appellant Ra Prasad Guru has been convicted under Sections 420 and 467, I.P.C. and sentenced to one year''s rigorous imprisonment under former section and two years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 500 under the latter; the sentences of imprisonment to run concurrently.

On 16th June 1927, the accused presented a postal cash certificate for Rs. 10, and received Rs. 11-14-0. The certificate was issued on 4th September 1918 in the name of Manindra Nath Sarkar (P.W. No. 2). Both the appellant and Manindra Nath Sarkar were employed as teachers in Sonepur Feudatory State School.

Manindra Nath Sarkar had passed the I. Sc. examination of the Calcutta University, and accused Ram Prasad Guru was preparing for. the Matriculation examination. He used to receive tuition from Manindra Nath Sarkar and pay him Rs. 15 as his monthly fee. The Feudatory State of Sonepur had required the servants of the State to purchase postal cash certificates, and accordingly on 4th September 1918 both Manindra Nath Sarkar and the accused purchased postal cash certificates of Rs. 10 each. The accused cashed his certificate the next day, and received Rs. 7-12-0. Manindra Nath Sarkar left the school in December 1918, or in January of the following year, and first he went to Calcutta and then he came to Jam-shedpur as a teacher in Perine Memorial English High School. He found that his postal cash certificate was missing from his trunk, and accordingly in November 1919, he applied to the Postal Authorities to issue a duplicate cash certificate. This was issued after enquiry on 8th January 1920, and he encashed it on 6th January 1921, and received Rs. 8-8-9 as value of the certificate on that date. The accused had left Sonepur in 1918, and on 16th January 1927 he presented the original cash certificate to the Sambalpur Post Office and received payment of Rs. 11-14-0 as its value on that date. Payment was made to him on the strength of an endorsement on the back of the certificate, which purported to be in the handwriting of Manindra Nath Sarkar and under his signature. Subsequently it was discovered by the Postal Authorities that the money due under the certificate was already paid in 1921 to Manindra Nath Sarkar on the basis of the duplicate certificate issued to him, and an enquiry was made from the accused.

He admitted having encashed the certificate and received payment. He claimed to have done so under the authority of the endorsement thereon by Manindra Nath Sarkar referred to above, stating that he had purchased the certificate from Manindra Nath Sarkar on the very day 4th September 1918, that the certificate was issued on payment of Rs. 5 to him. The reason stated by him was that Manindra Nath Sarkar and he himself did not in fact want to purchase cash certificates but did so simply on account of the orders of the State and in order to avoid displeasure, and that the accused encashed his own certificate the next day, but Manindra Nath Sarkar, fearing that if he did so the Raj authorities might be displeased and might psrhaps dismiss him from service, did not encash his certificate.

Therefore he wanted to dispose of it but could not get anyone to pay him more than Rs. 5, and consequently he sold it to the appellant for Rs. 5. Upon enquiries the Postal Department lodged this prosecution against the accused for having forged the endorsement on the certificate and for having cheated the Postal Department by receiving payment thereunder.

The accused stated that the endorsement was made by Manindra Nath Sarkar on 4th September 1918 at Sonepur and the certificate was made over to him at that place and that he actually did present the certificate for encashment to the Post Office at Sonepur the next day, but he could not receive payment upon the ground that such a transfer was not authorized without the sanction of the Postmaster-General. Consequently he kept the certificate with him, and did not make any further attempt to cash it. Afterwards when he went to Sambalpur he presented it for encashment at the Post Office there, but he was refused payment upon the ground that it should be presented to the Posts Office of issue. Some years after he learnt that the rules in the matter had been changed and that the Sambalpur Post Office could make payment. Accordingly, he did present the document in January 1927, and received payments from the Post Office at Sambalpur.

The charge u/s 467 stated that on or about 16th June 1927, at Sambalpur the accused forged the endorsement on the certificate with a view to receive the money due thereunder. It is contended on behalf of the appellant that the date and the place of occurrence mentioned in the charge are wrong. There is nothing to show that the endorsement in question upon the certificate was made on 16th January 1927 or that it was made at Sambalpur. Manindra Nath Sarkar left Sonepur in December 1918, and at Jamshedpur he found that the cash certificate was missing. He means that it was lost, stolen or misplaced at Sonepur at or before the time he was leaving that place in December 1918. The endorsement on the back of the document must have been written between that date and 16th January 1927.

That is, however, not very material for the purposes of this case. According to the statement of the accused the endorsement was made at Sonepur, and not at Sambalpur. There is nothing to show that it was made at Sambalpur. No doubt, some inference can be drawn from the fact that it was presented at Sambalpur on 16th January 1927 and the accused did not give any evidence to prove that the endorsement was made at Sonepur. Be that as it may, we have at present only the definite statement of the accused to go upon and it cannot, therefore, be said that the offence of forgery was committed at Sambalpur or any other place in British India. If it was committed at Sonepur, as the statement of the accused shows, then u/s 188, Criminal P.C. the accused could not be tried without the sanction of the Political Agent for that State or the Local Government. Sonepur State is one of the Orissa Feudatory States for which there is a Political Agent: vide Vol. 1 of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, India, p. 299, and the Bihar and Orissa Civil List for 1929. The obtaining of sanction has been held to be imperative and the omission to do so vitiates the trial and the conviction of an accused of that charge: vide Queen-Empress v. Abdul Latib [1886] 10 Bom. 186. Queen-Empress v. kathaperumal [1890] 13 Mad. 423 and Emperor v. Baldewa [1906] 28 All. 372.

At the same time it is very difficult to come to a definite finding in this case that it was the accused who wrote the endorsement on the back of the cash certificate in question (Ex. 4) and thus forged it in the name of Manindra Nath Sarkar. Two handwriting experts have been examined in this case one on behalf of the prosecution Babu Surendra Nath Ghosh, Inspector of Police, C.I.D. and the other the well-known handwriting expert Mr. Hardies Senior, now retired from service, on behalf of the accused. In view of the conflicting opinion of the experts it is very difficult to hold with certainty, upon mere comparison of the specimen handwritings of both Manindra Nath Sarkar and the accused that the endorsement is in accused''s handwriting and that the charge of forgery has been brought home to him. Two witnesses on behalf of the accused who have always seen the accused writing have sworn that the endorsement in question is not in the handwriting of the accused. Therefore, the accused is acquitted of the charge u/s 467, I.P.C.

New as regards the charge of cheating u/s 420, I.P.C., the offence was committed at Sambalpur, inasmuch as the cash certificate with the aforesaid endorsement thereon of Manindra Nath Sarkar was presented at the Post Office of that place. That being within British India the offence was triable in British India. The question is whether the offence of cheating u/s 420 has been proved. There are certain circumstances, no doubt, in favour of the accused. Admittedly he was in a way a student of Manindra Nath Sarkar who had been employed by him as his private tutor on Rs. 15 or Rs. 20 per month. At times he used to advance him petty loans of a rupee or "so whenever he required, for Manindra Nath Sarkar was getting only Rs. 50 a month from the school and was not very well off financially. The father of the accused is a Tahsildar in the Sonepur State and has property. Both the accused and Manindra Nath Sarkar were teachers in the same school and their relationship was, therefore, cordial until they parted with each other, Manindra Nath Sarkar leaving Sonepur in December 1918, and going to: Calcutta and ultimately to Jamshedpur.

On the other hand, it seems very unlikely that Manindra Nath Sarkar, a year after he left Sonepur, would venture to ask the Postal Department to issue a duplicate cash certificate to him upon the ground that the original cash certificate granted to him had been lost if in fact he had sold it to the accused by making an endorsement thereon in his own handwriting. Had he sold it certainly he would not have made the application for issue of a duplicate certificate, without having ascertained that the original certificate had not been already cashed by the accused, for it would have endangered not only himself but also the accused with whom he was intimate during his stay at Sonepur. Manindra Nath Sarkar''s case that he had not sold the certificate in question to the accused finds support from the aforesaid circumstances, and it seems that the accused having got the certificate in question somehow and finding that it was not cared for or demanded by Manindra Nath Sarkar for about nine years thought of converting it into money. There is nothing to show, and the Court below has also so held, that the accused came to be in possession of the cash certificate dishonestly. This would also seem to be so because the accused would not then have waited for nine years to convert it into money. The amount covered by this postal certificate was also not so large as to induce the accused to make any appreciable profit thereby. His antecedents were not bad, but he committed the offence of cheating u/s 420, I.P.C. by presenting the certificate to the Post Office at Sambalpur and inducing it to pay the value thereof.

In the circumstances the finding and the conviction u/s 420, I.P.C. are maintained, but the sentence of imprisonment is reduced to six month''s rigorous imprisonment. The sentence of imprisonment and fine of Rs. 500 u/s 467 are set aside, and the fine, if already realized, must be refunded to the accused.

James, J.

I agree.