P.Chakravartti, C.J. - (1.) The appellant, Prafulla Mohan Mukherjee, was appointed as Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police by the Deputy Inspector-General on 15-1-1925. On 2-1-1942, he was promoted to the rank of a Sub-Inspector and was placed on probation for one year. On 2-1-1943, he was confirmed in the rank of Sub-Inspector. Thereafter, on 10-11-1944, he was posted as a Sub-Inspector, Intelligence Branch, at 13, Lord Sinha Road and continued to serve in that capacity till the partition of India. After the Partition, the appellant opted for the State of West Bengal and having; done so, continued to serve in his old post till the proceedings out of which this appeal has arisen commenced.
(2.) So far as can be ascertained, the cause of the proceedings was a confidential letter written by the appellant himself on 5-11-1952, to the Special Assistant, Intelligence Branch, West Bengal. In that letter he stated that on 26-5-1952, his wife, Parul Bala Debi, had purchased a certain plot of land situated at Jadabpur in the District of 24-Parganas for a consideration of Rs. 5.000 and that he had already sought advice from the Office as to how that change in the position of his assets was to be included in his statement for the year 1952, already submitted. He added that the advice he had received was to include the change in the next statement to be submitted in January, 1953. If the appellant had already sought instructions as to what be had to do about the purchase by his wife and had received instructions, as the letter itself states, it is not particularly clear why it should have become necessary to bring that matter again to the notice of his Office, unless it was for the reason stated in the next paragraph of his letter. The next paragraph referred to certain disputes which had arisen with regard to the property in which one Khagendra Naskar, a member of the West Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, was said to be taking great interest and an apprehension was expressed that false allegations might be made against him to his superior Officers. Even fear of false reports against him does not wholly explain the letter, nor is it clear why, if the property was purchased by the appellant's wife with her own money and not by him in the wife's name, it had at all become necessary to inform his Office of the purchase. At one stage of the argument, Mr. Dutt Roy, who appears on behalf of the appellant, submitted that Regulation 112 (a) (i) of the Police Regulations, Bengal, required every Police Officer to make a declaration of all immovable property in India, held by him or by his wife or by any member of his family living with him or in any way dependent on him. If the Regulation referred to applied, the explanation offered by Mr. Dutt Roy would be good explanation, but obviously it does not apply. The Regulation requires the declaration contemplated by it to be made only "on appointment" and thus it is only when an Officer is first appointed that he is to make a comprehensive declaration of the kind contemplated by the Regulation. Subsequent annual statements are provided for in Clause (ii) of Regulation 112 (a) and it is there said that the statement is to be in Bengal Police Form No. 5. A reference to the form prescribed shows that while there is a column in it for an entry as regards properties belonging to the Officer, but held in the name of his wife or someone else, there is: no column at all for properties held by an Officer's wife in her own right. Apparently, it is only once and that at the time of his first appointment that an Officer is required to disclose all properties, whether held by himself or held by any of his relations, living with or dependent on him, but subsequently he is required to make an annual statement only with regard to properties which he himself owns, whether in his own name or in the name of some other person. In those circumstances, it seems to me that the description given in the proceedings to the letter as a "very unusual" one, was fully deserved.
(3.) The letter, however, was taken by the authorities to reveal that it was the appellant himself who had purchased the land at Jadabpur in respect of which a document had been taken in the name of his wife. The home District of the appellant in his service book was shown as Dacca and his home address was given as 120, Dayagunge Road, P. O. Narinda, P. S. Sutrapur in Dacca. Although the Dayagunge address was given as the appellant's home address, it appears that he had come to own and possess a two-storeyed building at 33 Gopibag 3rd Lane in the town of Dacca jointly with his wife in equal shares. The fact, however, remains that whether his home was the house at Dayagunge Road or the house at 33 Gopibag 3rd Lane, it was, in any event, in the town of Dacca and therefore the entry of Dacca as his home District in the service record was entirely correct. The land reported by him to have been purchased by his wife was situated in the District of 24 Parganas which was not the appellant's home District, if Dacca had continued to be such, as according to his service book it had. The authorities took the purchase as having been made by the appellant himself and as he had obtained no prior permission for the purchase, they took the view that he had violated Regulation 112 (c) of the Police Regulations of Bengal. That Regulation provides inter alia as follows : "A police officer is forbidden to purchase land or other immovable property elsewhere than in his home district, whether in his own name or in the names of his wives, children, relatives, dependents or servants or in any way benami x x x without the previous sanction of the Inspector-General.";