[IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL]

1948    
Present: Lord Simonds, Lord Normand,
Lord Oaksey, Lord MacDermott;
Sir Madhavan Nair

THE KING v. CASPERSZ PRIVY COUNCIL APPEAL,
No. 2 or 1948

S. C. 129-D. C. (Criminal) Trincomalee, 293.

Penal Code-Criminal breach of trust-Intention to cause wrongful gain or wrongful loss-Motive not relevant-Sections 21, 22, 388 and 392.

Accused, an executive engineer, was put in charge of work on a road which was of great urgency and in which speed was more important than cost. Complaints were made by the overseers that they were losing money on the work for the reason that they had to pay their labourers more than they were getting from the Public Works Department. In order to placate the overseers the accused instructed them to insert items in their bills for work which was not done, and made payments accordingly.

Held, that the accused was guilty of criminal breach of trust. The fact that the accused may have thought that he was   acting in the interests of the country was relevant only on the question of   sentence.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Supreme Court reported in (1946 47 N. L. R. 165).

L. M. D. de Silva, K.C., with R. K. Handoo, for the appellant.

Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, K.C., with Frank Gahan; for the Crown.

June 2, 1948. Delivered by LORD OAKSEY.-

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Ceylon dated March 7, 1946, which affirmed the conviction of the appellant by the District Court of Trincomalee on November 13, 1945, but substituted for a sentence of six months' rigorous imprisonment a fine of Rs. 500 and imprisonment till the rising of the Court. The appellant paid the fine and served the sentence of imprisonment.

At the conclusion of the arguments their Lordships announced that they would humbly advise His Majesty that the appeal should be dismissed, and they now state their reasons.

The charge against the appellant was that between April 10 and May 19, 1944, he, being entrusted as executive engineer at Trincomalee of the Public Works Department with money to pay overseers for rubble

bottoming on specified parts of the Trincomalee-Batticaloa road, committed a criminal breach of trust in respect of Rs. 6,218.48 out of such money.

The charge was under section 392 of the Penal Code and the following sections of the Code are material :-

" 21.-(1) ' Wrongful gain ' is gain by unlawful means of property to which the person gaining is not legally entitled.

(2) ' Wrongful loss ' is the loss by unlawful means of property to which the person losing it is legally entitled.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22. Whoever does anything with the intention of causing wrongful gain to one person, or wrongful loss to another person, is said to do that thing ' dishonestly '.

388. Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property, dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property, or dishonestly uses or disposes of that property in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust