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Judgment
We have no hesitation in finding that the conviction of the accused in this case was vitiated by the joinder of charges for more than three offences
at one trial. The third charge related to the false entries, E E. 12 and E E.9, and these entries were concerned with separate transactions by which
the accused took out two advances of Rs. 28,700 and Rs. 1,950 respectively on two separate deposits of areca of which 525 maunds of old
areca and 520 maunds of new areca were not received. These constitute, in our opinion, two separate offences, for, as was pointed out in Queen
Empress v. Moti Lal Lahiri ILR(1899) Cal 560 which was followed in another decision of the same court in Raman Behari Das v. Emperor ILR
(1913) Cal 722 each false entry which amounts to an act of falsification constitutes a separate offence, although a number of false entries might be
proved to cover one defalcation.
In this instance under the third charge there were two acts of defalcation covered by two false entries and the only thing to connect them
together was the fact that the goods were received on the same day from the same depositor. There were besides this third charge, two other
charges. The joinder of more than three charges at a single trial is fatal to the trial as laid down in Subramania Ayyar v. King Emperor ILR (1901)
Mad 61 and the conviction is therefore quashed and the accused is acquitted. We do not consider that there should be a retrial of the accused on
the present charges.