State of H.P. vs Krishan Lal and others

Deepak Gupta, J.—This appeal by the State is directed against the judgment dated 27th June, 2001, whereby the accused persons have been acquitted for having committed the offences punishable under Sections 218, 467, 468, 471 read with Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, Section 5(2)(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Sections 41 & 42 of the Indian Forest Act and Rules 11/20 and 18/20 of the H.P. Forest Produce Transit (Land Routes) Rules, 1978.

The prosecution case, in brief, is that accused No. 1, Krishan Lal, was a Forest Contractor engaged in the business of extraction and sale of timber. Accused No. 2, Nathu Singh, was the Station Master at Railway Station Shogi. Accused No. 3, Subhash Chander, was the Assistant Station Master at the same station. Accused No. 4 and 5, Om Prakash Verma and Baldev Verma, were the loading and unloading agents engaged in the business of loading and unloading the timber into the railway wagons.

The prosecution story, in a brief, is that accused Krishan Lal was granted export permit No. 186/81-82 (Ex. PW-2/A) whereby he was permitted to export 1416 scants of timber. The allegation of the prosecution is that, in fact, accused No. 1 hatched a conspiracy with accused Nos. 2 to 5 and instead of 1416 scants, actually 1674 scants of timber were exported against this permit. The matter was investigated and tried by the learned Special Judge, Solan, who has acquitted the accused vide a detailed judgment dated 27th June, 2001. Hence, this appeal by the State.

We have heard Mr. Vivek Singh Thakur, learned Additional Advocate General, for the State and Mr. Satyen Vaidya, Ms. Seema Guleria and Mr. Mehar Chand, Advocates, for the respondents-accused.

This appeal can be decided on one short point and it is, therefore, not necessary to advert to the entire evidence on record, since the accused No. 1 has not actually denied that he has, in fact, exported 1674 scants and for the purpose of this appeal, we are assuming that 1674 scants were exported. The main dispute is that whether 251 scants of timbers, which were transported vide railway receipt, Ex. PW-5/B, dated 30.12.1981, related to this permit or not. Admittedly, Krishan Lal was a timber contractor and had been granted various export permits. It was for the prosecution to prove that as against one export permit, he had exported more than the permitted number of scants.

The prosecution has tried to show that vide railway receipt, Ex. PW-5/B, Krishan Lal exported 251 scants of timber. This railway receipt, however, does not bear any permit number and it cannot be said with any amount of certainty that the timber in question was exported against this receipt.

The other document, which the prosecution relies to link these 251 scants with permit No. 186/81-82 is Ex. PW-37/A-7. This is a forwarding note for general merchandise. It is a printed form and some entries on the front page are stated to be in the hand of Krishan Lal accused. These are the entries wherein the blank space in the form, i.e. name of consignor, name of consignee, the station of origin, the station of destination etc. have been given and these have been collectively marked as Q-9. The signatures of Krishan Lal have been marked as Q-6. This document has been sent to the Examiner of Questioned Documents, who is PW-37 and who has opined that these writings are in the hand of Krishan Lal. However, these writings, which are in the hand of Krishan Lal, do not show what is the permit number to which this forwarding note relates. The obverse of the document was not sent to the Chemical Examiner of Questioned Documents, but these also do not contain the permit number. It would be pertinent to mention that neither forwarding note nor the railway receipt have any column in them where the export permit number is required to be mentioned.

The prosecution relies upon the figures ''186/81-82'', which are written at the top of document, Ex. PW-37/A-7. No doubt, these words are there. These figures are mentioned on this document, but it has not shown that these figures were written either by Shri Krishan Lal or by any other accused or by any other person. It is also not clear when these figures were written on the document. Even to the naked eye, it is apparent that these figures are not in the handwriting of Krishan Lal. They are not written with the same pen with which the other entries have been made. Therefore, this document cannot be used to show that the timber was exported against this permit. If these 251 scants of timber are excluded from 1674 scants, then the difference is only seven scants, which would mean that as against the permission granted to export 1416 scants, 1423 scants were exported.

It has come in the evidence of PW-5, Shri O.N. Badera, Station Superintendent, Shogi; PW-15, S.U. Siddiquie, who was the then Commercial Master in the Railways as well as Shri K.C. Nandwani, who was also a Commercial Master in the Railways that due to the fact that the Shimla-Kalka Rail runs on the narrow gauge, the size of the wagons is small, and, therefore, sometimes the scants which are longer in size are cut into small sizes, so that they can fit into the wagons.

This Court in a number of judgments has held that when there is only marginal difference in the number of scants, the accused cannot be convicted. Therefore, we find no merit in the appeal, which is accordingly rejected.