Judgement

BEG, J. :- On 11-7-1963 Sunilakshya Coudhary a Director of the Metropolitan Industrial Corporation Ltd., Calcutta, having been authorised by its Board of Directors, filed a complaint against the appellant Debendra Nath Bhattacharjee (or Bhattacharya), a former Director, and Banamali Pathak, Cashier of the Bengal Luxmi Cotton Mills Ltd., and Hiren Roy, Chief Accountant of the Bengal Luxmi Cotton Mills Ltd., alleging offences punishable under Sections 408/409/467/471/477A/109 Indian Penal Code.

2. The complainant alleged that when the Life Insurance business was nationalised in 1956 the Metropolitan Insurance Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the Company ) received a sum of about Rs. 10,25,523/- as compensation, and the Company was transformed into Metropolitan Industrial Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation ). The business of the Corporation was said to be confined to making of loans, and dealings in stocks and shares. The complainant was Director of the Company in 1957 and the accused appellant D. N. Bhattacharjee was alleged to be its Managing Director with absolute control over the funds of the Company and the only person authorised to operate the banking account of the Company with the Metropolitan Bank Ltd. Roundabout October, 1958, although, the appellant Bhattacharjee was said to have ceased to be the Managing Director, yet he is alleged to have continued to exercise the powers he had possessed as Managing Director. After the Company became the Corporation certain activities of the appellant D. N. Bhattacharjee are alleged to have come to light and compelled his resignation on 28-2-1963 so that he handed over some of the Books and records of the Corporation to the complainant. The complainant, after having examined the records handed over by D. N. Bhattacharjee, claimed to have found monthly pay sheets containing names of certain employees who were not employees of the Corporation at all and who were suspected to be fictitious as they could not be traced. The complainant alleged that, on further enquiry, he found that the Corporation had not employed anybody at all but had taken occasional help from certain employees of sister concerns which had their officers in the same building. In other words, the complainant claimed to have discovered that the pay-sheets of the Corporation were totally false and fabricated. He also complained that fictitious signatures of supposely different persons appeared to him to have been made by a single person so an to appear as signatures of different actually existing individuals. The complainant alleged that his suspicions were confirmed by sending these alleged signatures to a Handwriting Expert for opinion. According to the complainant, all this was done at the instance of or with the complicity of D. N. Bhattacharjee and with the aid of the two other coaccused. It was asserted that D. N. Bhattacharjee had full knowledge of what was taking place and had dishonestly misappropriated and converted to his own use large sums of money belonging to the Corporation. He and the two co-accused, who are said to have actually made the entries, were alleged to have been engaged in a conspiracy. The complainant gave a list of five witnesses, including that of a Handwriting Expert, and he relied upon a number of account books, documents, and records of the Company and the Corporation.

3. After an enquiry into the allegations contained in the complaint a Presidency Magistrate found prima facie evidence of a conspiracy to commit breach of trust by forging receipts and use of forged receipts and falsification of accounts. On 2-8-1963, the Presidency Magistrate, ordered the case to be put up before the Chief Presidency Magistrate for further orders.

4. On 10-8-1963, the Chief Presidency Magistrate, after giving particulars of the prosecution case and the evidence produced to support it, went on to observe: "In assessing the evidence adduced for the purpose of taking out a pro