Judgment

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J.:- These criminal appeals may be disposed of by a single judgment. The Trial Court, the Appellate Court and the Court of Revision have concurrently found the appellant guilty of charges under Section 409 Indian Penal Code in two separate cases. Ordinarily we would not have taken a fourth look at the evidence but we did so because some of the findings recorded by the Court of Revision appeared to us to be halting. Having considered the entire evidence and all the facts and circumstances of the case, we are satisfied that the appellant was rightly convicted by the Courts below.

2. The appellant was working as a Tahsildar at Dharni from 18th June, 1967 to 24th June, 1968. Pande and Wadhonkar were working under him during that period as Reader and Clerk respectively. As Tahsildar the appellant was incharge of receipt of amounts due to the government by way of revenue, fines etc. The case of the prosecution was that between 2nd February, 1968 and 1st March, 1968 he received a total sum of Rs. 824.20 ps. from sixteen persons towards land revenue and issued receipts to them. The receipts were prepared by Pande and countersigned by the appellant. The amounts covered by the receipts were never credited in the Treasury at Chikhalda. That was the subject matter of the first case. In the second case the allegation was that the appellant had auctioned certain timber and had received a sum of Rs. 1195/- from the auction purchasers. This amount was also not credited to the Government in the Treasury.

3. The defence of the appellant was not that the amounts were not received but that the amounts had been handed over on 25th March 1968 to Wadhonkar for the purpose of being remitted into the treasury. A receipt said to have been given to him by Wadhonkar was produced by the appellant. The receipt was in the writing of the appellant but signed by Wadhonkar.

4. The principal submission of Shri Phadke learned Counsel for the appellant was that the evidence did not show that any amount was entrusted to the appellant. The evidence showed that the amounts were entrusted to Pande alone and if Pande had not remitted the amount into the treasury immediately, the appellant could at the worst said to be guilty of lack of supervision but could not be said to be guilty of an offence under Section 409 Indian Penal Code. The learned Counsel sought to derive support for his argument from the finding of the Court of Revision that it was Pande that received the amount and not the appellant, but that the appellant must be held to have dominion over the amount received by Pande. According to the learned Counsel it would be going too far to hold that the appellant had dominion over the amounts received by Pande.

5. We are unable to agree with the submissions of the learned Counsel for the appellant. It is true that the actual physical act of receiving the money was that of Pande but the evidence shows that the money was paid into the hands of Pande in the presence of the appellant. The receipts were prepared by Pande and signed by the appellant then and there. The evidence of P.Ws. 5 and 7 shows that three account books were maintained, a Cash book, by the Reader, a chest cash book by the Tahsildar and a general cash book by the Naib Tahsildar. The evidence shows that the procedure followed was that after necessary entries were made in the account books, the amount would be kept in the Tahsildars chest or in the Nazirs chest before being deposited in the Treasury. If the amount was less than Rs. 500/- it would be kept in the Nazirs chest and if the amount was more than Rs. 500/- it would be kept in the Tahsildars chest. The duty of depositing the amount in the treasury was that of the Nazir. It was the duty of the Tahsildar to check the cash books and the cash every day. If the Cash Books were maintained every day, it was the duty of the Tahsildar to see that they were maintained properly. In the present case it has been established by the pr