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1927 Supreme(Nagpur) 191

HIGH COURT OF NAGPUR
Hallifax
NARSINGHDAS MARWARI – Appellant
Versus
EMPEROR – Respondent
Decided on : 17-09-1927

The power of interference in revision is to be used only for the purpose of correcting injustice, not mere illegality.

Headnote:

Revision - Criminal Cases - Section 420, Penal Code - Sections 417 and 511 - The judgment discusses the legality of the sentence passed under Section 420 and the finding altered to anconviction of attempting to cheat under Sections 417 and 511. It highlights the mistake of law in respect of the sentence and the inferences of fact drawn from the evidence.

Fact of the Case:

The accused, a cotton broker, was found to have committed an offence by misrepresenting the quantity of cotton belonging to the complainant and engaging in fraudulent activities related to the sale of the cotton.

Finding of the Court:

The Court declined to interfere with the decision of the Sessions Court, stating that the power of interference in revision is to be used only for the purpose of correcting injustice, not mere illegality.

Issues: The issues revolved around the legality of the sentence passed and the finding altered in the Sessions Court, as well as the misrepresentation of the quantity of cotton and fraudulent activities by the accused.

Ratio Decidendi: The Court emphasized that its interference in revision is for correcting injustice, not mere illegality, and declined to alter the finding or the sentence passed by the Sessions Court.

Final Decision: The Court declined to interfere with the decision of the Sessions Court by altering either the finding or the sentence, stating that to leave them both will do as little harm and to correct one of them as little good as to do the same thing in regard to a word that appears in the record with two different spellings.

JUDGMENT

Hallifax, A J C—This, like most applications for revision in criminal cases, is nothing more than a second appeal in which no question of law whatever is raised, but every finding of fact in which the Courts below concurred is attacked, not, as obviously mistaken, but on the ground that an evaluation of the evidence by this Court should and would lead it to a different conclusion. Even if that did happen, this Court would not have even the right to disturb the decisions at which the appellate Court has arrived. It happens further that in this case the learned Sessions Judge did fall into a very obvious mistake of law in respect of the sentence, but that has passed unnoticed and was not mentioned in the application for revision.

2. The sentence maintained in the Sessions Court was one of rigorous imprisonment for one year and a fine, with further rigorous imprisonment for four months in default of payment of it. That sentence is perfectly legal under Section 420, Penal Code, under which it was passed, but in the Sessions Court the finding was altered to anconviction of attempting to cheat, punishable under Sections 417 and 511 read together. The longest term of imprisonment that could be imposed substantively under these two sections combined is six months, and the longest that could be imposed in default of payment of fine is a month and a half. Now, though the applicant had no right to ask that the whole of the evidence should be examined by this Court for the third time, that has been done, and it is found, as might be expected, that it leads inevitably to the inferences of fact which two Courts have already drawn from it. They are these. The accused, a cotton broker, had in his possession a number of bales of cotton belonging to the complainant. On the 25th January the bales were weighed and found to consist of 129 akhas. (The akha is a1 unit, which has not been defined in the case, but seems to-include both weight and quality.)

3. The bales were in two lots or stacks, one of 43 units and the other of 86. The accused made three entries in his nakal bahi or day-book, all in the name of the complainant, of 43 units, 74 units and 12 units. It is in respect of the 12 units of the last item that he has been found to have committed an offence. After the weighment he told the complainant's servant, who had not checked it, that the total amount was 117 units, which was 12 short of the truth. The servant doubted this and asked for the tak patti or weighman's tally, which the accused declined to give him, saying it was not necessary. The servant came back shortly afterwards with a friend and the accused repeated to them both the statement that the quantity of cotton was only 117 units and again declined to show them the weighman's tally.

4. On the 27th January, two days after the weighment, the accused sold the lot of 43 units and credited the complainant with the price in his khatauni or ledger. Five days later, on the 1st February, he-sold the other lot of 86 units and credited the complainant with the price of 74 only. What entry was made at that time in respect of the remaining 12 units is uncertain, though it is clear that it was not a credit entry in favour of the complainant (Before the ledger was produced in this, case the page on which the entry of the 74 units appeared was removed and another substituted for it, showing the same entry and another just below it of the price of the 12 units which was also credited to the complainant).

5. During the next two or three weeks the complainant several times asked the accused for satisfactory evidence that his cotton had not amounted to more than 117 units, as he felt sure it had, and he asked in particular for the bill for ginning it which was with the accused, but the accused put him off from time to time by various falsehoods. On the first two occasions he said the bill had not yet reached him, on the third that he had already sent it by the hand of a messenger and on the fou




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