TMI Blog1966 (9) TMI 138X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... le under s. 120-B read with s. 409 I.P.C. and s. 5(2) read with S. 5(1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. They were all convicted by the trial Court. On appeal, the High Court acquitted Bhargava and dismissed the appeals of the other three persons. The present-appeal is by Khetwani, by special leave. The. other two convicted persons have not appealed. It may be mentioned here that the prosecution case is that in pursuance of the conspiracy, a number of licences in the name of several companies which had no existence were prepared, that some of these were actually is-sued and that two of those licences issued were in the name of M.L. Trading Co., Bombay, and were delivered to the appellant by Prabhakar, Karmik, P.W. 20, a postman, on ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... officer had given. 4. The High Court sought corroboration of the statement of Karmik from a single circumstance for which there was no evidence and which was not put to the accused when examined under s. 342 Cr. P.C. We may now set out the charge in so far as it concerns the appellant: That, during May 1959, you accused No. 1 A.G. Nelson, accused No. 2 P. H. Shingrani, you accused No. 3 Shrichand Ramshankar Ramayyan Bhargawa were parties with other unknown persons to a criminal conspiracy, by agreeing to do or cause to be done illegal acts, to wit, to abuse the official positions of yourselves viz. you accused No. 1 A. G. Nelson and you accused No. 2 P. H. Shingrani by corrupt or illegal means or otherwise to have import licenc ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o whom licences were issued were fictitious is not questioned. The conspiracy was a general conspiracy to keep on issuing licences in the names of fictitious firms and to share the benefits arising out of those licences when no real independent person was the licensee. The various members of the conspiracy other than the two public servants must have joined with the full knowledge of the modus operandi of the conspiracy and with the intention and object of sharing the profits arising out of the acts of the conspirators. We do not therefore see that the mere fact that licences were issued in the names of eight different companies make out the case against the appellant and the other conspirators to be a case of eight different conspiracies e ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... other of the farmers. The farmers were genuine persons in that case. Each farmer approached the supplier of lime and happened to be a party to the fraud committed in regard to the supply of lime to him. In the instant case, there is no such genuine independent company which directly approached the two public servants for its own benefit. Whoever posed for the purpose of the receipt of the licences and for utilising them were those who posed on account of the full knowledge of the conspiracy. It is not possible to believe that one without such knowledge would have posed, for a fictitious firm. We are therefore of opinion that this case does not fit in with the facts of the present case and that the contention for the appellant that the charg ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ain his admitted handwritings. He was not further questioned to explain why he considered it necessary to have admitted writings of the appellant in order to obtain the opinion of the handwriting expert about the disputed writing when specimen writings of the appellant were available. The explanation of the investigating officer seems to have been on account of practice. It appears from his statement Sup.C.I./66-10 that he sent certain questioned documents along with the admitted handwritings and specimen handwritings, signatures and initials of accused Nos. 1 and 2 to the Government Examiner of questioned documents. The practice may be sound or not but the bona fides of the conduct of the investigating officer cannot be questioned. The Hig ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... There is no reason why Karmik should have perjured himself to implicate an innocent person. It is after arriving at this opinion that the High Court observed that Karmik's evidence received indirect corroboration from the subsequent conduct of the appellant. Such conduct is said to be that the appellant waited for three or four days before approaching the Joint Chief Controller, after receiving the letter of Mishra asking him to meet the Joint Chief Controller the same evening or the next day. The accused was certainly not questioned about the reason for his not meeting the Joint Chief Controller promptly. The delay need not therefore be attributed to his guilty conscience and cannot be taken to be any corroboration of the statemen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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