9911796707
TMI Blog1972 (3) TMI 109X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... charya), a former Director, and Banamali Pathak, Cashier of the Bengal Luxmi Cotton Mills Ltd., and Hiran Roy, Chief Accountant of the Bengal Luxmi Cotton Mills Ltd., alleging offence punishable under Sections 408/409/467/471/477A/109 Indian Penal Code. 2. The complainant alleged that, when the Life Insurance business was nationalised in 1956 the Metropolitan Insurance Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'the Company') received a sum of about ₹ 10,25,523/- as compensation, and the Company was transformed into Metropolitan Industrial Corporation (hereinafter referred to as 'the Corporation'). The business of the Corporation was said to be confined to making of loans, and dealings in stocks and shares. The complainant ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... him to have been made by a single person so as to appear as signatures of different actually existing individuals. The complainant alleged that his suspicions were confirmed by sending these alleged signatures to a Handwriting Expert for opinion. According to the complainant, all this was done at the instance of or with the complicity of D.N. Bhattachariee and with the aid of the two other co-accused. It was asserted that D.N. Bhattacharjee had full knowledge of what was taking place and had dishonestly misappropriated and converted to his own use large sums of money belonging to the Corporation. He and the two co-accused, who are said to have actually made the entries, were alleged to have been engaged in a conspiracy. The complainant gave ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hat it was "improbable" that the Corporation could carry on its business without its own employees ; fourthly, that evidence had not been led to show what enquiries were made to indicate that the names on the pay sheet were fictitious; fifthly, that the complainant had himself admitted that one or two persons shown in the pay sheet might have been employed by the Corporation and that this "demolished" the whole prosecution case of fictitious entries; and, sixthy, that the opinion of the Handwriting Expert "does not appear to be emphatic" and was also not supported by "sufficient reasons". On these grounds, the Chief Presidency Magistrate, after holding that there were "really, no sufficient groun ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pinion on merits of the prosecution case beyond saying that the case called for further enquiry. It, therefore, set aside the order of dismissal under Section 203 of the Criminal Procedure Code and sent back the case for further enquiry in accordance with law. 6. The accused have come up to this Court by Special leave against the above-mentioned order of the High Court for further enquiry into the case. It is urged that the High Court should not have, in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction, set aside the Chief Presidency Magistrate's order. We are unable to accept this contention because we think that the Presidency Magistrate had not correctly understood the scope and purpose of the power to dismiss a complaint under Section 203 C ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... entioned in the pay-sheets the whole prosecution case was actually demolished. Moreover, as the High Court had rightly pointed out, the complainant's actual evidence had fully supported and not contradicted any part of the complaint. No such absurdity was revealed by the complainant's evidence as to merit a forthright dismissal of the complaint under Section 203 Criminal Procedure Code. What the Magistrate had to determine at the stage of issue of process was not the correctness or the probability or improbability of individual items of evidence on disputable grounds, but the existence or otherwise of a prima facie case on tie assumption that what was stated could be true unless the prosecution allegations were so fantastic that the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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