STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ANOTHER Vs. B.D. KHBRAGDE AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are the four criminal trials initiated by the Assistant Charity Commissioner, Nagpur, Against the member of the Managing Committee of "Sidhartha Shikshan Sahayak Sanstha, Chandrapur." All the four prosecutions relate to the breach of sections 32 and 33 (2) of the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, that is not getting the accounts audited anually in the manner prescribed by the Rules from a Chartered Accountant within the meaning of the Chartered Accountant's Act or such person as may be authorised in this behalf by the State Government. Each case relates to a different year. All the four prosecutions have been initiated on complaints filed by the Assistant Charity Commissioner at Nagpur. For filing these complaints, the Assistant Charity Commissioner relied upon a sanction granted by Joint Charity Commissioner, Bombay.

(2.) Prosecution led its evidence and the witnesses were cross-examined. The accused persons were also examined under section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. At that stage, instead of pronouncing a judgment on merits, the learned trial Judge by his order dated 31st Jan. 1968 dropped all these proceedings under section 249 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He found that in all the cases, the sanction that was obtained was of the Joint Charity Commissioner. Sec. 83 of the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, lays down that no prosecution for an offence punishable under this Act, shall be instituted without the previous sanction of the Charity Commissioner. Construing the section literally to mean that the sanction of the Charity Commissioner alone is needed, the learned Magistrate felt that these were unauthorised prosecutions without proper sanction and they need not be finally decided. He thought that these were fit cases where the provisions of section 249, Criminal Procedure Code, could be invoked and the prosecutions could be just dropped. Being aggrieved by this order, the complainant Assistant Charity Commissioner filed four revision applications in the Court of the Sessions Judge. The learned Sessions Judge confirmed the orders by agreeing with the reasoning of the trial Court Hence these four revision applications. Since they involve identical points of law, this common order will dispose of the four applications.

(3.) Two points arise for my consideration. One is whether the sanction of the Joint Charity Commissioner was enough under the provisions of the Bombay Public Trusts Act. The other is whether the sanction was valid or not and was the termination of the prosecution under section 249 of the Code Criminal Procedure by dropping them a proper order to pass. I would take up the second point first as it is very easy to dispose of. So far as this question is concerned, the learned trial Magistrate has fallen into an obvious error and the learned Sessions Judge while confirming the order has not applied his mind at all to the provisions of section 249 of the Code. This is obvious from the observation of the learned Sessions Judge that instead of dropping the prosecutions the trial Magistrate should have quashed the prosecutions. Assuming that the prosecution was not properly started, the trial should end in acquittal, but it is difficult to understand how a Magistrate could quash the prosecution. This order of the learned Sessions Judge was not supported even by the defence counsel who appeared before me.