9911796707
TMI Blog1991 (5) TMI 238X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e directors of this company. This company was incorporated on February 26, 1990, with the object to produce gases like oxygen, acetylene, liquid oxygen, etc., and the factory is situated at Mandi Govind Garh at Punjab. The petitioner was required to involve in the day-to-day working of this factory and so was appointed as supervisor. He was made in charge of the factory and the whole work of this factory was running under his supervision. All the books of account were required to be kept in the factory premises and were not required to be removed from there. It has further been alleged that the petitioner-accused taking advantage of his physical presence at Mandi Govind Garh removed books of account, machinery parts and gas cylinders valued at Rs. 30,00,000 from the factory premises without having any authority. It has also been alleged that the accused-petitioner had withdrawn huge amounts from the company accounts and in this way he has committed an offence under section 630 of the Companies Act. I have heard Shri Daljit Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri K. K. Jain, learned counsel for respondent No. 2. I have also carefully gone through the records. Learned co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... as committed." "179. Offence triable where act is done or consequence ensues:-- When an act is an offence by reason of anything which has been done and of a consequence which has ensued, the offence may be inquired into or tried by a court within whose local jurisdiction such thing has been done or such consequence has ensued." "181. Place of trial in case of certain offences.--. . . (4) Any offence of criminal misappropriation or of criminal breach of trust may be inquired into or tried by a court within whose local jurisdiction the offence was committed or any part of the property which is the subject of the offence was received or retained or was required to be returned or accounted for, by the accused person." Section 2(11) of the Companies Act defines the court as under : "the court means- (a)with respect to any matter relating to a company (other than any offence against this Act), the court having jurisdiction under this Act with respect to that matter relating to that company, as provided in section 10 ; (b)with respect to any offence against this Act, the Court of a Magistrate of the First Class or, as the case may be, a Presidency Magistrate, having jurisdiction to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o the High Court for dealing with the matters under the Act. No procedure has, thus, been provided under the Companies Act for trial of an offence by a criminal court. In these circumstances, the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure have to govern the matters relating to the place of trial for an offence under section 630 of the Act. Thus the place of jurisdiction for an offence under section 630 of the Act shall be decided with reference to the provisions contained in Chapter 13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The basic principle as contained in section 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is that every offence shall ordinarily be inquired into and tried by a court within whose jurisdiction it was committed. It is the admitted case of respondent No. 2 that the books of account, machinery and the management of its factory were to be looked after by the petitioner at Mandi Govind Garh, the place where its factory is situated. According to the allegations contained in the complaint, the petitioner has removed the books of account, machinery and the gas cylinders from the premises of the company and he has also withdrawn cash from the account of the company besides getting ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ion that the accused was found in an intoxicated state on the public road and was not liable to be convicted under section 85(l)(i) or section 85(1)(iii). He also came to the conclusion that the prosecution had failed to establish that the accused had taken liquor at a place within the jurisdiction of his court. So the accused was not convicted in respect of the offence under section 66(1)(b) of the said Act. In order to prove the commission of an offence under section 66(1)(b ) it was incumbent on the prosecution to prove that the accused had consumed the liquor within the area under the jurisdiction of the trial court and it was not sufficient to prove that the accused was found having already consumed the liquor. The mere fact that a person was found intoxicated at a place would not be sufficient to raise a presumption that liquor was consumed at that very place when there is no provision for raising such a presumption. Dealing with sections 177 and 179 of the Code of Criminal Procedure it was observed that if the offence is complete in itself by reason of the act having been done and the consequence a mere result of it not essential for the commission of offence then section 1 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cheque or warrant in respect thereof has not been posted within the time prescribed therefor and that once the dividend warrant is posted at the registered address of the shareholder dividend is deemed to have been paid. It was held that the section makes the failure to post within the prescribed period and not the non-receipt of the warrant by the shareholder an offence and that since the obligation to post the warrant arose at the registered office of the company, failure to discharge the obligation also arose at the registered office of the company and, thus, the Magistrate at Meerut had no jurisdiction to try the complaint. It was, thus, a separate offence and this judgment cannot be of any help to respondent No. 2. Similarly the case Upendra Kumar Joshi v. Manih Lal Chatterjee [1982] 52 Comp Cas 177 (Pat.), cannot be of any help in this case since it relates to the offence of non-payment of dividend to a shareholder. It was held that such an offence is committed at the place of the company's registered office and not where the dividend or warrant was to be sent. Reliance has also been placed on the case of T.S. Satyanath v. J. Thomas and Co. [1985] 57 Comp Cas 648 (Cal.). Th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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