BAKSHI SITA RAM Vs. LACHHMI CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) One Lachhmi Chand, a shop-keeper of Nahan, was convicted by the learned Additional District Magistrate of that place under Section 161, read with S. 116, I. P. C., for offering bribe to the Government Advocate, Sri Bakshi Sita Ram. On appeal, the learned Sessions Judge acquitted him, and, while doing so, he remarked that it was not a genuine case of a bribe offered to a public servant but a case which was virtually instigated by Bakshi Sita Ram himself, and that whatever Bakshi Sita Bam did in the present case was most reprehensible and did not do credit to a person of his position and status. Bakshi Sita Ram moved District Magistrate for a Government appeal against the acquittal, but the government refused to appeal. Thereupon, he filed the present revision, praying that the acquittal be set aside and the aforesaid remarks expunged.

(2.) Bakshi Sita Ram has since been transferred to Chamba. He himself argued this revision, which was opposed on behalf of Lachhmi Chand by Sri K. C. Pandit and on behalf of the State by the acting Government Advocate Sri C. L. Puri. Since this Court cannot, in view of the provisions of S. 438(4), Criminal P. C., convert the finding of acquittal into one of conviction, the petitioner contended that after setting aside the acquittal the appeal be ordered to be reheard.

(3.) It is said that a revision against conviction of a certain relation of Lachhmi Chand was pending in this Court, and that Lachhmi Chand approached the petitioner on the noon of 14-11-1951 and promised to serve him if he showed favour to the said relation by so arguing the revision on behalf of the State that it resulted in his acquittal. The petitioner, who was taking lunch in a hotel, did not only not accede to the request but severely rebuked Lachhmi Chand and the latter fled from the hotel. The petitioner's allegation is that later in the afternoon, as he was passing by the shop of Lachhmi Chand, the latter joined him and again made similar overtures to him, whereupon the petitioner asked him to come to him at 8 p. m. at the dak bungalow where he was staying. Lachhmi Chand came to the petitioner's room at the appointed time. According to a pre-arranged plan, a Magistrate and some police officers were lying in wait in an adjoining room. The prosecution case was that Lachhmi Chand offered a hundred-rupee currency note to the petitioner, and that, as he did so, the Magistrate and the police rushed out at a signal from the petitioner and apprehended Lachhmi Chand after a short chase.