TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1978 (9) TMI 172
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....ppeal No. 178 of 1977 is M.A. Kochu Devassy who was sent up, alongwith 11 others, for trial in respect of offences under sections 120-B, 408, 465, 467, 477 and 477-A of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter described as the Code) and clause (c) of sub-section (1) read with sub-section (2) of section 5 of the 1947 Act to the Special Judge, Trichur by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vigilance Department, Trichur. The allegations against the accused were that while being members of the Board of Directors or the servants of Cooperative Society No. R-192, Chalakudy (hereinafter called the Society), they, on the 18th of May 1972, entered into a conspiracy to misappropriate the funds of the Society, that in pursuance of that conspiracy they misappropriated a sum of ₹ 1900/- on the same date and that they prepared false records in order to conceal the misappropriation. Before the trial commenced, however, a petition was made on behalf of the accused to the High Court of Kerala praying that the charge be quashed. That petition came up for hearing before Khalid, J., who doubted the correctness of the dictum of a Division Bench of that Court in Sahadevan v. State of Kerala to the effe....
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....in Criminal Appeal No. 178 of 1977. 4. At this stage we may usefully refer to various provisions of the Code, the 1947 Act, the 1952 Act, the Kerala Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act (Central Act No. 50 of 1955 and hereinafter called the 1955 Act). Section 21 of the Code defines what is a "public servant". In 12 clauses it lists various categories of persons who fall within the definition. Members of the executive committee or servants of a co-operative society are not embraced by any of those categories. Chapter IX of the Code headed "Of Offences by or relating to Public Servants" consists of sections 161 to 171. Section 161 states the conditions on the fulfilment of which a public servant would be guilty of bribery and lays down the punishment therefor. Section 2 of the 1947 Act as originally enacted was to the following effect: '2. For the purposes of this Act, "public servant" means a public servant as defined in section 21 of the Indian Penal Code.' Sub-section (1) of section 5 of the 1947 Act states when a public servant can be said to commit the offence of criminal misconduct. It has five clauses of which the first three run as ....
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....ns 162, 163 and 164 of the Code to the range of offences to try which the Special Judge had exclusive jurisdiction, so that such jurisdiction thenceforth extended to the trial of offences under sections 161 to 165-A of the Code and subsection (2) of section 5 of the 1947 Act. Seven years later was promulgated the Kerala Act, section 2 where of amended section 161 of the Code by adding thereto an Explanation, the relevant part of which is extracted below: '"Public Servant"-For purposes of this section and sections 162, 163, 164, 165 and 165-A, the words "public servant" shall denote, besides those who are "public servants" within the meaning of that section under any law for the time being in force, persons falling under any of the descriptions hereinafter following, namely: (i)......................... (ii)......................... (iii)........................ (iv) Every member of the Board of Directors or the executive or managing committee and every officer or servant of a co-operative society registered or deemed to be registered under the law relating to co-operative societies for the time being in force; (v) .......................... ....
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....nse, there was no point in enlarging the definition of the expression "public servant" by adding an Explanation to section 161 of the Code; for, in that case, the proper and direct method of carrying out the intention would have been to amend section 21 of the Code itself, so as to make the definition therein embrace all the eight categories of persons mentioned in the added Explanation. 5. We find ourselves wholly unable to accept any of the contentions. The terms of section 2 of the 1947 Act as substituted by section 3 of the Kerala Act are absolutely clear and unambiguous and when they lay down that the expression "public servant" shall have a particular meaning for the purposes of the Act, that meaning must be given to the expression wherever it occurs in the Act. "For the purposes of the Act" surely means for the purposes of all and not only some of the provisions of the Act. If the intention was to limit the applicability of the definition of the expression "public servant" as contended, the language used would not have been "for the purposes of the Act" but something like "for the purposes of the Act insofar as they rel....