Ram Bilas Sharma and Others vs Emperor.

Dhavle, J.—The petitioners stood bail for certain persons accused of offences under Sections 143 and 447, Penal Code. Before accepting the bail bonds into which they entered, the learned Magistrate who took the bonds made it clear that the release of the accused persons was to be conditional. The Court Sub-Inspector had prayed that the bailors'' fitness might be enquired into, and the Magistrate did not consider this necessary, especially when the bailors were substantial people. As regards the conditional release of the accused persons he added:

The bailors undertake before me orally that they would keep the accused in Monghyr so that they may neither rejoin the Satyagraha at Lagar nor do they instigate others to join or carry on the movement there. I accept their undertaking on the distinct understanding that if any report is received showing contravention of this undertaking, I will at once cancel the bail and forfeit the bail amount. On this condition I accept the bail bond and order the release of the three accused on bail at once.

This was a part of the order passed by the Magistrate on 7th July 1939, and was signed in the margin by the bailors, the petitioners before me. On the 19th of the same month the Magistrate appears to have received a report from the police saying that two of the accused persons had been to Gogri and had made arrangements for volunteers to be sent in batches to Lagar to offer Satyagraha. He thus found that the undertaking given by the bailors had been violated "as the accused themselves say that they had gone to Gogri," and he cancelled the bail bonds of those two accused persons and also forfeited the bail amount of Rs. 200 of the bailors.

He further directed the issue of distress warrants at once for realization of the amounts. On 24th July the petitioners applied to the Magistrate and prayed for being exempted ''from the liability of paying penalty. The application was apparently rested on the ground that the petitioners.

executed the bail bond in which there was nothing regarding the accused persons not going anywhere, that is, in ordinary course of business the bail bond had been executed,

though in the next paragraph of the application it was said

of course in the ordersheet mention of the Act was made that the accused persons should not go to Lagar and take any part, etc.

In the next paragraph it was stated that it appeared that Suresh Chandra Misra (one of the accused persons) went to Bihpur and thence to Gogri and met the Inspector of Police who asked him to go back to Monghyr and he at once came to Monghyr and surrendered before the Court and admitted his mistake in leaving Monghyr on some economical grounds. The learned Magistrate re. fused the application of the petitioners and noted that the conditions were explained to the bailors in Court and the latter put in their signatures in the order-sheet.

Against the dismissal of the petitioners'' application of 24th July to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, an appeal was preferred to the District Magistrate. The argument in the appeal appears to have been that the bail bonds did not contain the conditions imposed by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, and that therefore the bail could not be forfeited for breach of those conditions. The learned District Magistrate dismissed this as a "merely technical argument to wriggle out of the situation." He dismissed the appeal.

It has been contended by Mr. Shahi, who appears for the petitioners, that the procedure followed by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, in holding the petitioners to their bond was wrong and that the petitioners should have been heard before the order of forfeiture was passed. This contention must clearly be accepted.

The learned advocate has further contended that the conditions which I have quoted from the order-sheet of the Magistrate form no part of the contract of bail and that the liability of the petitioners must be determined on the terms of the bail bonds themselves. But, if it be a fact that the petitioners signed the order-sheet of the Magistrate against the part which contains the undertaking on which he accepted the bail bonds, the order-sheet with the petitioners'' signatures itself becomes a part of the contract between the parties. If a contract is required to be in writing, it is not the law that it must be contained in one piece of writing alone and the full terms of contracts in writing have often to be gathered from a series of letters passing between the parties put together.

I am therefore unable to accept the petitioners'' contention that their liability is confined to the bail bonds alone, and I hold that bail was accepted, as the Magistrate put it in his order of 7th July, on the distinct understanding that if any report is received showing contravention of this undertaking I will at once cancel the bail and forfeit the bail amount.

This is a case where the Magistrate concerned undoubtedly failed to follow the appropriate procedure u/s 514 in that be held the petitioners to their bonds with-out calling upon them to show cause why the penalty should not be paid. But it is also a case where there is no real dispute about the facts. In fact, the only points mooted below was that the "distinct understanding" was no part of the contract of bail, and this, as I have already held, is quite untenable. It was suggested by Mr. Shahi that there is no proof that the signatures against the Magistrate''s order of 7th July, which purport to be the signatures of the petitioners were in fact made by them But the answer to this is furnished by what the Magistrate has said in his order of 31st July, on the petitioners'' application of the 24th of that month and by the failure of the petitioners to challenge it in appeal.

There is also no question that the Magistrate did receive a report on 19th July, regarding the doings of at least one of the accused persons for whom the petitioners had stood bail, nor indeed about the doings of that accused contrary to the conditions imposed by the Magistrate before agreeing to accept bail. Section 537, Criminal P.C., provides (to quote those portions which are now material) that

no order passed by a Court of competent jurisdiction shall be reversed or altered on revision on account of any error, omission or irregularity in any inquiry or other proceedings under this Code unless such error, omission, irregularity....has occasioned a failure of justice.

It seems to me quite clear that this is sufficient in the circumstances of this case to prevent interference in revision, though it must not be understood that this is in any sense an approval of the carelessness shown by the Magistrate in his proceeding u/s 514. The application is dismissed.