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TMI Blog1962 (9) TMI 61X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hen preferred an appeal against his acquittal in these three cases to the High Court of Allahabad but restricted the appeal to the acquittal of the appellant in respect of offences under s. 52 of the Indian Post Office Act, 1898 (hereafter referred to as the Act). The High Court held that the appellant had secreted the five registered letters in question and on this finding set aside his acquittal and convicted him in each of the three appeals for offences under s. 52 of the Act and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year in each case. The appellant has come up to this Court by special leave. Briefly stated the prosecution case is that when the house in which the appellant lives along with his father Diwan Singh, a retired Police Head Constable, was searched by the C.I.D. Inspector, S.N. Singh, along with Masood Murtaza, Sub-Inspector of Police, Bulandshahr on May 12, 1956, in connection with a case against Messrs Greenwood Publicity, they accidentally discovered a large number of letters and postcards and also the five registered letters in question. At the time of the search the appellant who happens to be a trade union official, was not in Bulands ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cedure, are contravened the search could be resisted by the person whose premises are sought to be searched. It may also be that because of the illegality of the search the Court may be inclined to examine carefully the evidence regarding the seizure. But beyond these two consequences no further consequence ensues. The High Court has chosen to accept the evidence of the prosecution with regard to the fact of seizure and that being a question to be decided only by the Court of fact, this Court would not re-examine the evidence for satisfying itself as to the correctness or otherwise of the conclusions reached by the High Court. In so far as the contravention of provisions of s. 342, Code of Criminal Procedure, are concerned it is sufficient to point out that no grievance was made either before the Court of the Additional Sessions judge or before the High Court that there was such a contravention and the appellant was prejudiced and we cannot allow the point to be raised for the first time here, the reason being that whether there was prejudice is a question of fact and cannot be permitted to be agitated for the first time in an appeal under Art. 136 of the Constitution. As regards t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the almirah which is said to have been in his exclusive possession. To secrete means, according to the dictionary to hide . In connection with a postal article addressed to some person the fact that it is retained in his possession by an officer of the post office in an almirah and that too for an inordinately long period would be tantamount to hiding that article. Of course, what act amounts to secreting would necessarily depend upon the facts of each case and in our opinion in a case like the present, what 'has been established by the prosecution would sustain an inference of secreting. Further, a perusal of s. 55 makes it clear that where the entrustment of an article is made an ingredient of an offence, the legislature has used appropriate words to make the matter clear. If, therefore, it was the intention of' the legislature that for an officer of the post office to be punished for secreting, destroying or throwing away a postal article in the oucrse of transmission by post, entrustment of that article to him was essential it would have used language similar to that used by it in s. 55. It seems to us that bearing in mind the' fact that an officer of the post o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the postal employees. It is probably for this reason that the definition clearly lays down that until an article despatched by post is delivered or can be said to be delivered that it will be deemed to be in course of transmission. We cannot, therefore, accept the first part of this contention of Mr. Misra. As regards the other point, that is, based on the fact that there were acknowledgments in respect of three letters in the post office we may point out that the existence of these acknowledgments would no more than raise a presumption that those articles were delivered to the addressees. The addressees have been examined in this case and they have deposed that the letters in question were not received by them. Their evidence has been believed by the High Court and therefore, there is an end to the matter. In the circumstances, therefore, we do not accept Mr. Misra's contention that the act of an officer of the post office in being in possession of a postal article for an inordinate length of time has no significance and cannot justify the conclusion that he had secreted the article. The next and in our opinion the most important question to be considered is whether the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cause a very large number of articles found in the almirah admittedly belong to the father. The third reason that the rather would not foist articles to incriminate the son and thus ruin his career assumes that had the father kept the articles he could have done so only if he wanted to incriminate the son. We cannot understand why the father, if he happened to get possession of the articles from some source may not have kept them in the almirah in the same way in which he had kept the other articles belonging to him. That leaves, therefore, only the first reason. We doubt if on the basis of this reason alone the High Court could have held that though the locked almirah was not in the exclusive possession of the appellant, these articles were in his exclusive possession. If the point to be established was whether the appellant had availed himself of the opportunity to procure the articles it could have been established by showing that he was in their exclusive possession. But to say that he must be deemed to be in exclusive possession of these articles and not merely in their joint possession along with his father because he had the opportunity to get at the articles and then infer ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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