Meaning of the expression accused of any offence.

These are two connected appeals instituted by Bhagwandas Goenka, against the convictions and sentences of the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate in C.C. Nos. 6910 and 6911 of 1956, convicting this appellant under section 4. (3) read with section 23, and sections 4 (1) and 9 read with Notification No. 12 (13) F-1/47 dated 25th March, 1947 and section 23 respectively of the Foreign Exchange-Regulation Act, 1947, and sentencing him to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000 upon each charge. The cases were tried and dealt with by the learned Magistrate separately, but, as a matter of fact, the transactions are inter-related and have to be viewed as a whole. They mainly occurred within the period 26th July, 1951 and 14th September, 1951, when the appellant visited the United States along with his wife Saroj Goenka, who was a co-accused in the lower Court in C.C. No. 6911 of 1956, but was discharged. Before proceeding into the facts, it will be convenient to set out the charges, and also to scrutinise, in this context itself, the relevant provisions of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act which the appellant is supposed to have infringed.

In C.C. No. 6910 of 1956 in the Court below, the charge against the appellant was that he failed to utilise a portion of the foreign exchange allowed to him for his visit to the United States, namely, 500 dollars out of the 1,800 dollars, sanctioned, and that, instead of selling or transferring without delay this unutilised sum to an authorised dealer in foreign exchange in India, he deposited this amount of 500 dol-lars in the joint account of himself and his wife with the National City Bank of New York, and thus committed an offence under section 4 (3) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, read with section 23 of the Act. In C.C. No. 6911 of 1956, the charge against the appellant was that, during his visit to the United States, between 26th July, 1951 and 14th September, 1951 (on or about 7th September, 1951), he borrowed a sum of 4,000 dollars from a person other than an authorised dealer in foreign exchange, which he deposited in the joint account of himself and his wife, and thus contravened section 4 (1) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act. The second charge was that he failed to surrender the aforesaid sum of 4000 dollars to an authorised dealer in foreign exchange in India for conversion into Indian currency, within the period of one month from the date of acquisition, and thereby contravened the provisions of section 9 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act read with Notification No. 12 (13) F-1/47, dated 25th March, 1947, both these contraventions being punishable under section 23 of the Act.

Section 4 (1) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (VII of 1947) runs as follows:

“ Except with the previous general or special permission of the Reserve Bank no person other than an authorised dealer shall in the States, and no person resident in the States other than an authorised dealer shall outside the States, buy or borrow from, or sell or lend to, or exchange with, any person not being an authorised dealer, any foreign exchange” .

Similarly, section 4 (3) of the same Act is to the following effect:

“ Where any foreign exchange is acquired by any person other than an authorised dealer for any particular purpose, or where any person has been permitted conditionally to acquire foreign exchange, the said person shall not use the foreign exchange so acquired otherwise than for that purpose, or as the case may be, fail to comply with any condition to which the permission granted to him is subject and where any foreign exchange so acquired cannot be so used or, as the case may be, the conditions cannot be complied with, the said person shall without delay sell the foreign exchange to an authorised dealer.”

Section 9 of the Act, which is titled ‘Acquisition by Central Government of Foreign Exchange’, runs as follows:

“The Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, order e