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1964 SCC OnLine SC 77 : (1965) 2 SCR 283 : AIR 1965 SC 1248 :
(1965) 2 Cri LJ 253
In the Supreme Court of India
(BEFORE K. SUBBA RAO, RAGHUBAR DAYAL AND N. RAJAGOPALA AYYANGAR,
JJ.)
RANCHHOD LAL (IN ALL THE APPEALS) …
Appellant;
Versus
STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH (IN ALL THE
APPEALS) … Respondents.
Criminal Appeals Nos. 218 to 221 of 1964*, decided on November
27, 1964
Advocates who appeared in this case:
Jai Gopal Sethi, Senior Advocate (R.C. Mukati and R.L. Kohli,
Advocates, with him), for the Appellant (In all the Appeals);
I.N. Shroff, Advocate, for the Respondent (In all the Appeals).
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
RAGHUBAR DAYAL, J.— The appellant, in these four appeals by
special leave, was convicted in four cases of an offence under Section
409 IPC and was sentenced to 4 years' rigorous imprisonment and fine
in the first two cases on January 17, 1962, by the First Additional
Sessions Judge, Ujjain, Shri H.B. Aggarwal. He was also convicted in
these two cases of offences under Section 467 read with Section 471
and Section 477-A IPC. The sentences imposed for these offences were
to run concurrently with the sentence of imprisonment for the offence
under Section 409, IPC. The sentences imposed in the two cases for the
offence under Section 409 IPC were to run consecutively as no order
had been made by the Sessions Judge for the sentence in the case in
which judgment was pronounced later, to run concurrently with the
sentence imposed in the other case.
2. In each of the other two cases, the appellant was sentenced to 3
years' rigorous imprisonment under Section 409 IPC by Shri Dube, First
Additional Sessions Judge, Ujjain, on July 20, 1963. The Sessions Judge
ordered the sentences in these two cases to run concurrently, but did
not order them to run concurrently with the sentence awarded in the
first case on January 17, 1962.
3. The appeals against the conviction of the appellant in the four
cases were dismissed by the High Court. With respect to the sentence
in the appeal against the first conviction in Sessions Trial No. 35 of
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1961, the High Court said:
“Coming to the sentences, the basic offence is criminal breach of
trust under Section 409 IPC and a sentence of four years' rigorous
imprisonment cannot, in these circumstances, be considered
excessive. If anything, I would call it somewhat lenient.”
The sentence of fine of Rs 1000 was considered to be ‘feeble’.
4. In disposing of the appeal against the conviction in the second
case, Sessions Trial No. 36 of 1961, the High Court said with respect to
the sentence:
“The sentence of imprisonment is also low; but possibly the
Sessions Court took account of the fact that there were other and
similar cases against Ranchhodlal in which there was a possibility of
a conviction.”
5. In the third appeal from the order in Sessions Trial No. 55 of
1962, the High Court said:
“If there had been an application for enhancement of sentence, I
would not have hesitated to increase the sentence because this
paying himself on the part of the appellant is a very serious matter.
But there being no such prayer by the. “State, the matter has to be
left at that.”
In the fourth appeal, the High Court said:
“The trial court has awarded a sentence of three years without
fine. It is quite lenient.”
6. The result of the four convictions and sentences passed in these
cases is that the appellant has to undergo imprisonment for 11 years
for mainly committing the offences under Section 409 IPC with respect
to different amounts, in his capacity as Sarpanch of the Mandal
Panchayat, Ujjain.
7. Special leave was granted on the question of sentence only. One
of the grounds taken in the special leave petitions was that his being
tried in four cases for committing criminal breach of trust with respect
to different amounts, led to the petitioner's prejudice and harassment
inasmuch as he was to undergo sentences of imprisonment
consecutively.
8. Sub-section (1) of Section 397, CrPC provides that when a person
already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment is sentenced on a
subsequent conviction to imprisonment, such imprisonment shall
commence at the expiration of the imprisonment to which he has been
previously sentenced, unless the Court directs that the subsequent
sentence shall run concurrently with such previous sentence. It follows
that a subsequent sentence of imprisonment is ordinarily to commence
at the expiration of imprisonment under the previous sentence, and
that the Court recording the conviction has the discretion to order that
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the later sentence would run concurrently with the previous one.
9. The Additional Sessions Judge who convicted the appellant in two
cases in January 1962 did not exercise his discretion in favour of the
appellant. The other Sessions Judge who convicted the appellant in two
cases in 1963 exercised his discretion to the extent that he made the
sentences in those two cases concurrent and did not make those
sentences concurrent with the earlier sentences imposed on the
appellant in January 1962. The judgments in the four Sessions Trials
are not before us and we are not in a position to say whether this
aspect of the matter was urged before the Sessions Judges when they
recorded the convictions and sentenced the appellant in the four
Sessions Trials.
10. It was not urged before the High Court that the sentences in all
the four cases be made to run concurrently. If it had been urged, the
decision might have gone against the appellant if one considers the
remarks of the High Court on the nature of the sentence in each case.
The High Court considered that the sentences were inadequate.
11. Learned counsel for the appellant has not urged that there is any
illegality in the sentences awarded to the appellant in the various
Sessions cases or in not making them run concurrently with the
sentence awarded in the first Sessions Trial No. 35 of 1961. He has,
however, urged that the various acts of criminal breach of-trust which
formed the basis of the convictions took place within a period of a few
months, from November 19, 1955 to February 23, 1956 and that
therefore the appellant should have been charged for committing
criminal breach of trust with respect to the total amount he had
misappropriated, in view of Section 222 CrPC and that if he had been
so charged, the charge for misappropriating the total amount would
nave been the charge for one offence and the appellant would have
been tried on such one charge at one trial and, on conviction, would
have been awarded only one sentence which would not have ordinarily
exceeded 4 years' rigorous imprisonment.
Section 222 CrPC reads:
“(1) The charge shall contain such particulars as to the time and
place of the alleged offence, and the person (if any) against whom,
or the thing (if any) in respect of which, it was committed, as are
reasonably sufficient to give the accused notice of the matter with
which he is charged.
(2) When the accused is charged with criminal breach of trust or
dishonest misappropriation of money, it shall be sufficient to specify
the gross sum in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been
committed, and the dates between which the offence is alleged to
have been committed, without specifying particular items or exact
dates, and the charge so framed shall be deemed to be a charge of
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one offence within the meaning of Section 234:
Provided that the time included between the first and last of such
dates shall not exceed one year.”
Sub-section (2) is an exception to meet a certain contingency and is
not the normal rule with respect to framing of a charge in cases of
criminal breach of trust. The normal rule is that there should be a
charge for each distinct offence, as provided in Section 233 of the Code.
Section 222 mentions what the contents of the charge should be. It is
only when it may not be possible to specify exactly particular items
with respect to which criminal breach of trust took place or the exact
date on which the individual items were misappropriated or in some
similar contingency, that the Court is authorised to lump up the various
items with respect to which criminal breach of trust was committed and
to mention the total amount misappropriated within a year in the
charge. When so done, the charge is deemed to be the charge of one
offence. If several distinct items with respect to which criminal breach
of trust has been committed are not so lumped together, no illegality is
committed in the trial of those offences. In fact, a separate trial with
respect to each distinct offence of criminal breach of trust with respect
to an individual item is the correct mode of proceeding with the trial of
an offence of criminal breach of trust.
12. Learned counsel for the appellant also relied on Section 234 CrPC
and urged that three offences of criminal breach of trust could have
been tried at one trial as Section 234 provides that when a person is
accused of more offences than one of the same kind committed within
the space of twelve months from the first to the last of such offences,
whether in respect of the same person or not, he may be charged with,
and tried at one trial for any number of them not exceeding three. This
again, is an enabling provision and is an exception to Section 233 CrPC.
If each of the several offences is tried separately, there is nothing
illegal about it. It may also be mentioned that the total number of
items charged in the four cases exceeded three.
13. Lastly, reference was made, on behalf of the appellant to Section
235 CrPC and it was urged that all these offences were committed in
the course of the same transaction, and therefore they should have
been tried at one trial. Assuming, without deciding, that these offences
could be said to have been committed in the course of the same
transaction, the separate trial of the appellant for certain specific
offences is not illegal. This section too is an enabling section.
14. Apart from the fact that the separate trials of the appellant in
four cases for committing breach of trust with respect to several items
was not illegal, there is nothing on record to show that the
investigating agency had worked out all the cases of criminal breach of
trust prior to prosecuting the appellant for the offences of which he was
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tried at Sessions Trial No. 35 of 1961. If all the offences had not been
worked out prior to that, there could not have been a joint trial for all of
them even if that could have been thought to be a more reasonable
way of proceeding against the appellant.
15. The fact that the first two Sessions Trials ended in a conviction
in January 1962 on commitments made sometime in 1961 and that the
Sessions Trials ending on July 20, 1963 were on commitments made
sometime in 1962, prima facie indicate that the investigating agency
submitted the charge-sheets against the appellant for the offences tried
in 1963 after — and possibly long after — it had submitted charge-
sheet with respect to the first two cases. There cannot therefore be any
design in prosecuting the appellant for different offences in four cases.
16. We are therefore of opinion that there had been no illegality in
the Court's trying the appellant in four cases and in not ordering the
various sentences awarded in different Sessions Trials to run
concurrently with the sentences awarded in Sessions Trial No. 35 of
1961.
17. It has been strongly urged that the total sentence of 11 years'
which the appellant has to undergo for committing the various offences
of criminal breach of trust is severe and that if he had been tried for
these offences at one trial after taking advantage of the provisions of
Section 222 Cr. P.C., the sentence which would have been awarded to
him would not have exceeded 4 years, as that is the normal maximum
sentence awarded for an offence under Section 409 IPC. An offence
under Section 409 IPC is punishable upto imprisonment for life or
imprisonment upto 10 years. The measure of the sentence is usually
governed by the nature of the offences committed and the
circumstances of their commission and it cannot be held as a hard and
fast rule that a sentence is not to exceed a certain period of
imprisonment when the law has itself laid down the extent upto which
a sentence can be inflicted for a certain offence and has left discretion
to the Court to adjust the sentence according to the circumstances of
each case. We need not detail the circumstances of these cases, but
would simply note that they do not justify taking any lenient view
about the sentences for the offences committed by the appellant who
hold a very responsible position as Sarpanch of the Societies and as
such had to deal with the proper disbursement of public money for the
purposes of public benefit. He miserably failed in discharging these
duties in the manner expected of him. A deterrent sentence is always
essential so that others in such responsible positions and having
occasions to deal with large sums of public money do not fall victim to
greed and dishonesty.
18. We therefore dismiss these appeals.
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———
*
Appeals by Special Leave from the Judgments and Orders dated 21st May, 1964 of the
Madhya Pradesh High Court (Indore Bench) at Indore in Criminal Appeals Nos. 30 and 31 of
1962 and Nos. 246 and 258 of 1963 respectively
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