JUDGMENT

1. This was a rule calling upon the District Magistrate to show cause why the conviction and sentence of the Petitioner should not be set aside on the ground that there has been a misjoinder of charges. It is alleged that the Petitioner, purporting to be an official of the Criminal Investigation Department, and also to be a reporter of the Englishman newspaper, mixed himself up with a scandal which had arisen in a family belonging to the Kayestha community, one of the leaders of which is Babu Atma Ram, the Principal of the Patna Law College. By means of his reports and seeking to mix up the name of Babu Atma Ram with the scandal in question, he succeeded in obtaining certain sums of money from Babu Atma Ram on various dates. He was charged under sec. 170, I. P. C, with personating of a Police officer and thereby in such assumed character doing, or attempting to do, an act under color of such office; he was further charged on three charges of extortion in respect of three sums of Rs. 8, Rs. 19 and Rs. 15 and in the alternative on three charges of cheating in respect of the three sums and finally of an attempt at extortion in respect of Rs. 50 under sec. 384 read with sec. 511.

2. The principal contention of the learned Vakil who appears in support of the rule is that the charge under sec. 170 is complete in it self and does not form part of the same transaction. We are unable to accede to this proposition.

3. The personating of a Police officer and the acts done in that character form the backbone of a series of frauds which the Petitioner was thereby enabled to commit. The case seems to us to fall exactly within the principles laid down by Mahmood, J., in Queen-Empress v. Wazir Jan I. L. R. 10 All. 58 (1887) where in a trial for offences under sees 170 and 383, I. P. C, committed in the same transaction it appeared that but for personating a public servant the accused would not have been in a position to commit the acts "of extortion complained of-whether extortion or cheating is admittedly immaterial.

4. The only other ground which was taken was that as regards Rs. 8; but it is admitted now that that was substantially in the course of the same transaction and there can be no doubt that the obtaining of these three sums was in the same transaction.

5. It is true that the 8th charge of attempting to extort Rs. 50 overlaps the 6th and 7th charges to a certain extent, inasmuch as Rs. 19 was sent to meet the demand of Rs. 50 and subsequently Rs. 15 is said to have been sent in pursuance of that demand. Although the charges overlap, they had to be framed separately and had the case been before a jury, the jury would have to decide separately on each of the facts stated in those three charges and would have been at liberty to find that either one or two or three of those charges were established on the evidence. Therefore, there has been no misjoinder in this regard. For all these reasons, we discharge the Rule.