1913 Present: Wood Renton A.C.J.

THE KING v. ABDUL RAHIM.

79-D. C. (Crim.) Colombo, 3,531.

Punishment-Forging three separate documents in the course of a transaction-Same object-Separate sentences-Consecutive-Penal Code, s.67-Criminal Procedure Code, a. 17.

The accused, with the object of obtaining payment of a sum of money deposited by another in the Post Office Savings Bank, forged three distinct documents, viz., (1) an application for withdrawal ; (2) a warrant of withdrawal; (3) a letter of consent to the withdrawal by the depositor; and was sentenced to three terms of imprisonment, which were to run consecutively.

Held, that the three separate sentences on the three separate charges were legal.

WOOD RENTON A.C.J.-The three forgeries were committed on separate occasions. The appellant stands charged with each separately, and the three taken together do not constitute in their combination a distinct and more serious offence.

THE facts appear from the judgment.

H. A. Jayewardene (with him De Jong), for the appellant.

Garvin, Acting S.-G., for the Crown.

July 14, 1913. WOOD RENTON A.C.J.-

The accused-appellant has been convicted of forgery in the District Court of Colombo, and has been sentenced to periods of imprisonment amounting in all to four years. The evidence in support of the findings of the learned District Judge on the facts is overwhelming, and there is no doubt but that the conviction must be affirmed. Mr. H. A. Jayewardene has raised an interesting point in regard to the sentences. The object of the appellant was to obtain payment by the Post Office of a sum of Rs. 100 from the Savings Bank account of Don Hendrick Amerasinghe. For this purpose, with the assistance of a little boy Cornelis, who is Don Hendrick's son, he forged, as he was bound to do in order to carry out the fraud, three distinct documents: in the first place, an application for withdrawal; in the second place, a warrant of withdrawal; in the last place, a letter of consent to the withdrawal by the depositor. Those were three distinct forgeries, although they were obviously committed as part of a transaction which had one and the same object, namely, to secure possession of the sum of Rs. 100. The appellant was charged with each of the forgeries.

The District Judge has sentenced him to two years' rigorous imprisonment in respect of the first, and a term of one year's rigorous imprisonment in respect of each of the second and third. The sentences are to run consecutively. So that, as I have already stated, if they are upheld, the appellant will have to undergo four years' rigorous imprisonment. Mr. H. A. Jayewardene's contention is that the imposition of consecutive sentences in a case of this kind is prohibited by section 67 of the Penal Code, as it has been interpreted in certain cases here, and as the corresponding provision in the Indian Penal Code has been interpreted in India. Section 17 of our Criminal Procedure Code provides that, where a person is convicted at one trial of any two or more distinct offences, the Court may sentence him to the several punishments prescribed for each, so long as the amount of these punishments does not exceed its jurisdiction, and then provides-I will quote only the material words-" that, if the case is tried by a District Court, the aggregate punishment shall not exceed twice the amount of punishment which that Court in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction is competent to inflict." If that section stood alone, it could scarcely be contended that there was anything wrong in the sentences passed by the learned District Judge in the present case. But we are here referred to section 67 of the Penal Code. That section enacts that where anything which is an offence is made up of parts, any of which parts is itself an offence, the offender shall not be punished for more than one of such offences, unless it be so expres