Ranchhodlal vs State Of Madhya Pradesh

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Criminal Appeals Nos. 218 to 221 of 1964

Decision Date: 27 November 1964

Coram: Raghubar Dayal, N. Rajagopala Ayyangar

In Ranchhodlal versus State of Madhya Pradesh, the matter was decided on 27 November 1964 by the Supreme Court of India. The judgment was authored by Justice Raghubar Dayal, who sat on a bench together with Justice N Rajagopala Ayyangar. The petitioner was Ranchhodlal and the respondent was the State of Madhya Pradesh. The date of the judgment was recorded as 27 /11 /1964 and the bench composition was reiterated as Justice Dayal, Justice Subbarao, Justice K Ayyangar and Justice N Rajagopala. The case is reported in the 1965 volume of AIR at page 1248 and also in the 1965 Supreme Court Reporter (second series) at page 283; it is cited in the Research Foundation reporter of 1972 at page 496 (second entry). The statutory provisions that formed the basis of the dispute were sections 222, 233, 234 and 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 (Act 5 of 1898) and section 409 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (Act 45 of 1860), which deals with criminal breach of trust. The principal question that the Court examined was whether it was lawful to conduct separate trials for the same breach of trust and to award sentences that were required to run consecutively rather than concurrently. The headnote recorded that the appellant had been convicted in four separate cases for an offence punishable under section 409 of the IPC. In the first two cases the appellant received a term of imprisonment together with a fine, while the sentences in the remaining two cases were ordered to run consecutively. The High Court of Madhya Pradesh had dismissed the appellant’s appeal against those convictions. The Supreme Court held, first, that there was no illegality in trying the appellant in four distinct proceedings relating to amounts that had been misappropriated within a short span of months, and that the Court was not required to direct the various sentences imposed in different Sessions Trials to run together. The Court explained that the ordinary rule, found in section 233 of the Criminal Procedure Code, requires a separate charge for each distinct offence, and that section 222 specifies the contents of such a charge. Only in limited circumstances may a court amalgamate several items of criminal breach of trust and mention the total misappropriated amount for a period of one year in a single charge; when that is done the charge is treated as one offence. Secondly, the Court observed that section 234 of the Code is an enabling provision that constitutes an exception to section 233, and therefore trying each of the several offences separately did not constitute any illegality. Thirdly, the Court noted, without deciding the precise issue, that even if the offences were alleged to have arisen out of the same series of transactions, conducting separate trials for certain specific offences was not unlawful, because section 235 also functions as an enabling provision. The judgment was issued under the criminal appellate jurisdiction for Appeals Nos 218 to 221 of 1964, which were special leave appeals from the orders dated 21 May 1964 of the Madhya Pradesh High Court (Indore Bench) in criminal appeals numbered 30 and 31 of 1962 and 246 and 258 of 1963. Counsel for the appellant in all the appeals were represented by senior advocates, while counsel for the respondent was also appointed for each appeal. Justice Raghubar Dayal delivered the judgment of the Court. The appellant, in the four special‑leave appeals, had been found guilty in each case of an offence under section 409 of the IPC and was sentenced to four years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine in the first two cases on 17 January 1962 by the first Additional Sessions Judge, as recorded in the proceedings.

In the proceedings before the Sessions Judge at Ujjain, Shri H. B. Aggarwal, the appellant was found guilty of offences under sections 467 read with 471 and section 477A of the Indian Penal Code. The Court ordered that the sentences for those offences would run at the same time as the sentence of imprisonment imposed for the offence under section 409 of the Indian Penal Code. Regarding the two cases that involved the offence under section 409, the Court directed that those sentences should be served consecutively, because it had not issued any order to make the later‑pronounced sentence run concurrently with the earlier one. In the other two cases, the appellant received a term of three years of rigorous imprisonment under section 409, this time imposed by Shri Dube, the First Additional Sessions Judge of Ujjain, on 20 July 1963. The Sessions Judge in those matters ordered the two three‑year sentences to run together, but deliberately chose not to make them run together with the earlier sentence that had been awarded on 17 January 1962.

The High Court dismissed all four appeals against the appellant’s convictions. In its observation on the first conviction, recorded in Sessions Trial No. 35 of 1961, the Court remarked that the basic charge was criminal breach of trust under section 409 and that a four‑year rigorous imprisonment could not be regarded as excessive; on the contrary, the Court described the sentence as somewhat lenient and called the fine of one thousand rupees “feeble”. Concerning the second conviction, Sessions Trial No. 36 of 1961, the Court noted that the term of imprisonment was also low, but suggested that the Sessions Court might have considered the existence of other similar cases against Ranchhodlal. In the third appeal, arising from Sessions Trial No. 55 of 1962, the Court stated that had the State asked for a harsher penalty, it would not have hesitated to increase the term because the appellant’s act of paying himself was a very serious matter; however, because no such prayer was made, the sentence remained unchanged. In the fourth appeal, the Court described the three‑year sentence without fine as quite lenient. As a result of the four convictions, the appellant faced a total of eleven years’ rigorous imprisonment, principally for offences under section 409 committed in his capacity as Sarpanch of the Mandal Panchayat, Ujjain. Special leave to appeal was granted solely on the question of sentence, and one of the grounds raised in the special leave petitions was that the appellant had been tried in four separate cases for criminal breach of trust involving different amounts, which the petitioner claimed caused prejudice and unnecessary hardship.

In this case the petitioner complained that because the convictions related to different amounts of misappropriated money, he was forced to face several consecutive terms of imprisonment, which he alleged caused him prejudice and harassment. The Court explained that sub‑section (1) of section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states that when a person who is already serving a term of imprisonment receives a further conviction for imprisonment, the new term is to begin only after the expiration of the earlier term, unless the court expressly orders that the later term shall run at the same time as the earlier one. Accordingly, the normal rule is that a subsequent sentence commences when the previous sentence ends, but the court that records the conviction retains the discretion to make the later sentence run concurrently with the former. The Court observed that the Additional Sessions Judge who handed down convictions in two of the cases in January 1962 chose not to use this discretion in the appellant’s favour, whereas the other Sessions Judge who decided two further convictions in 1963 did exercise the discretion to the extent of making those two sentences concurrent, but did not extend that concurrency to the earlier January 1962 sentences. The judgments of the four Sessions Trials are not part of the material before this Court, and consequently the Court was not in a position to determine whether the question of concurrence had been raised before the Sessions Judges at the time they recorded the convictions and imposed the sentences. The petitioners also noted that the issue of making all four sentences run concurrently had not been raised before the High Court. The Court indicated that, had such a submission been made, the High Court’s own observations that each sentence was unduly lenient might have led the tribunal to reject the appellant’s request for concurrency. The High Court, in its observations, described each of the sentences as being quite lenient. Counsel for the appellant did not contend that there was any illegality in the way the sentences had been awarded in the individual Sessions cases, nor did he argue that the sentences should have been made concurrent with the sentence imposed in the first Sessions Trial No. 35 of 1961. Instead, his submission focused on the basis of the charges themselves.

Counsel for the appellant further argued that the various acts of criminal breach of trust which formed the foundation of the four convictions were committed within a short span of time, specifically from 19 November 1955 to 23 February 1956. On that basis, he contended that, pursuant to section 222 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the appellant should have been charged with a single offence of criminal breach of trust covering the total misappropriated amount, rather than being charged separately for each distinct amount. He maintained that if a single charge had been framed, the appellant would have faced only one trial, and upon conviction would have been sentenced only once, a sentence that ordinarily would not have exceeded four years of rigorous imprisonment. The Court reproduced the text of section 222 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides: “(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 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.” The Court noted that subsection (2) is an exception designed to address a particular contingency and does not represent the ordinary rule for framing charges in cases of criminal breach of trust, where the normal rule, as laid down in section 233 of the Code, requires a separate charge for each distinct offence.

Section 222 of the Code of Criminal Procedure required that a charge contain the details of the person or thing against whom the offence was alleged, together with information that was reasonably sufficient to give the accused notice of the matter with which he was charged. Sub‑section (2) of that provision permitted a charge for criminal breach of trust or for dishonest misappropriation of money to specify only the total sum involved and the period during which the offence was alleged to have been committed. It was not necessary under that sub‑section to list each individual item or to give exact dates for each misappropriation. When a charge was framed in that manner, the charge was to be treated as one offence within the meaning of section 234, provided that the period between the first and the last of the dates mentioned did not exceed one year. The Court explained that sub‑section (2) was an exception designed to address a particular contingency and was not the normal rule for framing charges in cases of criminal breach of trust. The normal rule, as laid down in section 233, required a separate charge for each distinct offence. Section 222 merely set out the contents that a charge should contain. Only when it was impossible to specify the exact items or the precise dates of misappropriation, or in a similar situation, could the Court be authorised to combine the various items into a single charge and to mention the total amount misappropriated, provided the combined period was within a year. When such a lumping was done, the charge was deemed to be one offence. Conversely, if several distinct items involved in criminal breach of trust were not combined, the trial of those offences was not illegal. In fact, conducting a separate trial for each distinct offence relating to an individual item was regarded as the proper method of prosecution.

Counsel for the appellant also relied on section 234 of the Code and argued that up to three offences of criminal breach of trust could have been tried together because that provision allowed a person accused of more than one offence of the same kind, committed within twelve months from the first to the last offence, to be charged and tried in a single trial for any number of such offences not exceeding three, irrespective of whether the offences were against the same victim. The Court noted that section 234 was an enabling provision and therefore an exception to the rule in section 233. The Court further observed that there was no illegality in trying each of the several offences separately. It was also pointed out that the total number of items charged across the four cases was greater than three, which meant that even under section 234 the offences could not have been consolidated into a single trial. Finally, the appellant’s submissions also referred to section 235 of the Code.

The Court noted that it had been submitted that all the alleged offences arose from the same transaction and therefore ought to have been tried together. The Court stated that, without deciding whether the offences truly formed a single transaction, it could assume that they might be characterised as such and still conclude that trying the appellant separately for particular offences was not unlawful. The provision relied upon by the appellant was described as an enabling provision, meaning that it permitted separate trials. Beyond the observation that separate trials in the four cases involving breach of trust with respect to several items were permissible, the Court found no record showing that the investigating agency had identified every criminal breach of trust case before initiating prosecution in Sessions Trial No. 35 of 1961. The Court explained that if the agency had not identified all the offences at that stage, it could not have conducted a joint trial of all offences even if a joint trial might have seemed a more reasonable approach. The Court further observed that the first two Sessions Trials resulted in convictions in January 1962 for offences committed in 1961, whereas the Sessions Trials concluded on 20 July 1963 concerned offences committed in 1962. This sequence suggested that the charge‑sheets for the 1963 offences were filed after, and possibly long after, the charge‑sheet for the earlier cases was filed. Consequently, the Court held that there was no intentional scheme to prosecute the appellant in four separate cases. Accordingly, the Court expressed the opinion that there was no illegality in the lower Courts trying the appellant in four distinct proceedings and in refusing to order the sentences from the later Sessions Trials to run concurrently with the sentence from Session Trial No. 35 of 1961.

The Court also addressed the argument that a total imprisonment of eleven years was excessive and that a single trial under section 222 of the Criminal Procedure Code could have resulted in a sentence not exceeding four years, which is described as the usual maximum for an offence under section 409 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court clarified that an offence under section 409 IPC carries a maximum punishable term of life imprisonment or up to ten years, and that sentencing is normally guided by the nature of the offence and the circumstances in which it was committed. The Court emphasized that it is not a rigid rule that a sentence must stay within a fixed period when the statute itself provides a broader range and leaves discretion to the Court to adjust the penalty according to the specific facts of each case. Thus, the Court rejected the contention that the cumulative sentence was impermissibly harsh.

The Court indicated that it was unnecessary to recount the specific facts of each case, but it observed that the record did not warrant any lenient approach toward the punishments imposed on the appellant. The appellant had occupied a highly responsible role as the Sarpanch of the Societies, a position that required him to oversee the correct allocation of public funds intended for collective benefit. In performing those duties, the appellant performed in a wholly unsatisfactory manner, failing dramatically to meet the standards of honesty and care that the office demanded. The Court stressed that a sentence designed to deter misconduct is indispensable, particularly when the offender occupies a position of trust and regularly handles substantial amounts of public money. Such a deterrent serves to remind other officials in comparable positions that they must not succumb to avarice or dishonest conduct. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the appeals raised by the appellant could not be entertained, and it ordered that the appeals be dismissed. The dismissal of the appeals therefore stood as the final order of the Court.