Judgement

Appeal (No. 82 of 1946) by special leave, from a judgment of the High Court (January 29, 1946) which had allowed an appeal by the Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, Bengal, from the acquittal of the appellant by the Police Magistrate of Sealdah (June 22, 1945) on a charge of accepting a bribe brought under s. 161 of the Indian Penal Code. The High Court set aside the order of acquittal, convicted the appellant and sentenced him to one years rigorous imprisonment.

The following facts are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee. The main ground of appeal was that there had been contraventions of s. 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, that the High Courts judgment relied on the testimony of a witness, Mr. Roy, who had given a signed statement to the police in breach of the section and had, also in breach of the section, had it before him and made substantial use of it while he was giving evidence. It was also made a ground of appeal that the police officers engaged on the investigation had failed to keep a diary in contravention of s, 172, sub-s. 1.

The appellant was employed from June till August 24, 1944, by the East Indian Railway as a grain depot officer at Howrah station. His chief duty was to receive from contractors articles for which orders were placed by the head office of the company, to compare them with approved samples and subsequently to distribute them. On August 22, 1944, a contractor named Bhattacharjee reported to Deputy Superintendent Dutt of the Calcutta Police that the appellant had solicited from him a bribe of 400 rupees to pass a sale of 80 maunds of mustard oil, and that he proposed to make that payment next day. Bhattacharjee subsequently gave evidence at the trial that the appellant had made that demand, but that evidence was not corroborated by any other witness. A police trap was laid for the appellant on August 23, but its only result was that Bhattacharjee reported that the appellant was now refusing to take 400 rupees and was demanding that 800 rupees should be paid to him on August 24 at his residence at Park Circus. Another police trap was therefore prepared for the appellant, and on August 24, Police Superintendent Dutt, Mr. Roy, a magistrate whose services as a witness had been obtained, Police Inspector Lahiri and Bhattacharjee went in a taxi driven by one Yasin to the block of flats in Park Circus where the appellant and his brother Nazimuddin lived. It was then after 8 p.m., the black-out was in force, and it was raining heavily.

It was decided that Bhattacharjee should stay in the taxi with Mr. Roy, while Mr. Dutt and Inspector Lahiri stood by a lorry which was stranded on the pavement between the taxi and the flats. One of the parties then called the doorkeeper, Ram Surdar and sent him with a message to the appellant that someone had come by taxi to see him but was prevented by an injured leg from going up to the appellants flat.

From that point the controversy of fact between the parties became acute. Bhattacharjee depended that the accused came out of the block of flats, entered the taxi, took the seat beside the driver and, after asking who Mr. Roy was, and whether Bhattacharjee had brought the money with him, received from Bhattacharjee marked notes to the value of Rs. 800. Bhattacharjee further said that after some more talk the accused left the taxi, that he, Bhattacharjee, then gave a pre-arranged signal by flashing his torchlight, and that he saw the appellant being seized by the police witnesses. The police witnesses testified that they saw the accused come down from his flat and enter the taxi, that after seeing the signal made by the torchlight they arrested him as he was about to re-enter the block of flats, and that as they did so he flung away a bundle of notes, which they later found on the mudguard of the stranded lorry and identified as the notes previously marked. Mr. Roy gave evidence which corroborated Bhattacharjees evidence about