Law: Penal Code (XLV of 1860)

Section: 403

P L D 1956 Supreme Court (Pak.) 417         (a) Prosecution--To prove each ingredient of offence --Evidence Act (I of 1872), Ss. 101 and 105.   Subject to certain exceptions, the most important of which is to be found in section 105, Evidence Act, the admitted and otherwise firmly established principle is that, before the prosecution can ask for a conviction of a criminal offence, it is its duty to prove each ingredient of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt.   (b) Penal Code (XLV of 1860)---S. 405-Criminal breach of trust-Ingredients, necessary to be proved by prosecution.   To establish a charge of criminal breach of trust the prosecution must prove not only entrustment of or dominion over property but also that the accused either dishonestly misappropriated, converted, used or disposed of that property himself or that he wilfully suffered some other person to do so.   Where the charge was that the accused, a Naib-Patwari, had misappropriated a sum of money collected by him by way of rent, from tenants of evacuee land, and the defence was that the sum collected had been made over to the Patwari in accordance with whose directions the money had been collected, the Patwari agreeing that the sum had been duly received by him from the accused which fact in the circumstances of the case could not be branded as false:   Held, that in the absence of any suggestion that the accused knew that the money would be misappropriated by the Patwari, the charge of misappropriation against ' the amused must fail.     Date of hearing: 16th October 1956.   JUDGMENT   MUHAMMAD MUNIR, C. J.----This is an appeal, by special leave, from a judgment of the High Court of West Pakistan, in a criminal. case The appellant, Shakir Hussain, was charged before a Special Judge with criminal breach of trust as a public servant, convicted under section 409 of the P. P. C. and sentenced to 4 years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000. On appeal, a learned Judge of the High Court affirmed the conviction but reduced the period of imprisonment to 2 years, maintaining the sentence of fine.   Between June and…