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TMI Blog1957 (1) TMI 17X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 32, clause (3), of the Indian Companies Act. The revision petitioners in Crl. R.C. No. 773 of 1956 were prosecuted for not filing within 21 days after the date of the first or only general meeting in the year 1953 a complete list of members and summary under section 32, clause (3), of the Indian Companies Act. The revision petitioners in Crl. R.C. No. 774 of 1956 were prosecuted for not laying the balance sheet and profit and loss account for the year 1952 at a general body meeting held during the year 1953 as required by section 131(1) of the Indian Companies Act. The revision petitioners in Crl. R.C. No. 775 of 1956 were prosecuted for not laying the balance sheet and profit and loss account for the year 1953 at a general body meeting he ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... en submitted within 21 days after the date of said meeting was not filed in spite of several reminders. A balance sheet and profit and loss account for the year ending 31st December, 1952, was not laid before the meeting as required by the Indian Companies Act. On 30th December, 1954, there was a general body meeting of the bank at Arcot and in that meeting a balance sheet and profit and loss account for the year ending 31st December, 1953, was not laid as required by the Companies Act. The plea of the accused persons in all these cases was nothing more than an argument drawn from misery. In the case of the bank, which is accused 1, it was urged that a correct and complete return could not be re-submitted as a number of accounts and regis ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nt or if the courts refused to return the registers to make an application for the inspection of the accounts and registers for the said purpose. In fact the preparation of the list of A class shareholder members alone was filed on 30th August, 1952, after 21 days and this shows that all the registers and records could not have been in the custody of the court. The registrar's office also sent several reminders. But the bank, the supervising director, and the directors remained callously indifferent to these reminders. The learned Sub-Divisional Magistrate therefore rightly refused to accept this plea as exonerating each of these revision petitioners from the discharge of their plain duties. It is now argued, therefore, that though this c ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t, in establishing such guilty knowledge, actual or direct knowledge is not absolutely essential, there being no doubt that a person who deliberately shuts his eye to an obvious means of knowledge is equally liable. Less certainty is felt in regard to negligence when used in the sense of blameful inadvertence. This interpreted negligence describes the state of mind of a person who ought to have known, and is obviously not so reprehensible as the state of mind of a person who wilfully shuts his eyes to the obvious. Hitherto, strong objection has been voiced to basing criminal liability upon mere inadvertence. But where the phrase mens rea is used to denote a state of mind, it is possible to argue that the only state of mind which is pert ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nce or the absence of any such qualifying words making out a case of absolute prohibition, where the doing of the act prohibited could itself furnish the mens rea, or qualifying words like "permitting", "suffering", "causing" and "allowing" constituting the intermediate theory of liability based upon blameful inadvertence. Of course the acceptance of negligence as a sufficient degree of mens rea would be restricted to those statutory offences in which the legislature intends to use the criminal law as a means of securing the maintenance of certain standards of behaviour in such matters as road traffic, food and drugs, weights and measures licencing and public health. To sum up, in regard to the proof of mens rea in the large class o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... appening does nothing about it. Bearing these principles in mind, if we examine the facts of this case, we find that the prosecution has brought home to these revision petitioners by circumstantial evidence knowing and wilful non-compliance. The revision petitioners knew what they had to do and deliberately refrained from complying with those obligations and that too in spite of repeated reminders from the registrar, on pretexts which cannot bear scrutiny. This knowing and wilful default on the part of the revision petitioners cannot be better put than in the words of the Calcutta High Court in Bhagirath Chandra Das v. Emperor [1947] 17 Comp. Cas. 93 "If directors, who are responsible for the management of a company and who presumab ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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