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Porus A. Mehta and P. G. Gokhale, for the respondent. 1956. March 13. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by SINHA J.-The main question canvassed in this appeal by special leave is whether the ruling of this Court in the case of Topan Das v. The State of Bombay(1) governs this case also, in view of the fact that the appellant is the only person out of the accused persons placed on trial, who has been convicted for the offence of conspiracy under section 120-B, Indian Penal Code. The point arises in the following way:

From the concurrent orders of conviction and sentence of the appellant under section 120-B, Indian Penal Code, he was granted special leave to appeal to this Court. The learned counsel for the appellant has raised the following points in support of the appeal:-

1. That all the persons charged with the offence of conspiracy except the appellant having been acquitted, his conviction and sentence in respect of that charge could not in law be maintained;

able under s. 120-B, I.P.C. , and within the cognizance of court of Sessions".

It will thus appear from the words of the charge that the approver was not specifically named as having been one of the conspirators, unless he could be brought within the category of "other accused persons". Something will have to be said as to what those words denote, whether the approver was also included within that description. Counsel for the appellant contended that they did not. Counsel for the State Government contended to the contrary. In England an indictment consists of three parts: (1) the commencement, (2) the statement of the offence, and (3) the particulars of the offence. The English law of indictment from very early times has been based on very technical rules. Those rules have now been codified by the Indictments Act, 1915 (5 & 6 George 5, Chapter 90). In Rule 2 (Schedule 1) of the Act as amended by the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1933, the form of "the commencement of the indictment" has been prescribed. The form of "Statement of the offence" has been prescribed by Rule 4 of the Act and below that has to follow "Particulars of offence" as re- quired by Rule 5. Those rules more or less correspond to the rules laid down in Chapter XIX of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Section 221, Code of Criminal Procedure, requires that the charge shall state the offence with which the accused is charged, giving the specific name of the offence, if such a name has been given by the law which creates the offence, which in this case means the offence of criminal conspiracy, defined by section 120-A, Indian Penal Code. The naming of the section is, under sub-section (5) of section 221 , Code of Criminal Procedure, equivalent to a statement that every legal condition required by law to constitute the offence of criminal conspiracy charged against the appellant was fulfilled. Section 222 of the Code requires that the particulars as to the time and place of the alleged offence, and the person (if any) against whom, or the thing (if any) in respect of which, the offence was committed, shall be stated. It is noteworthy that section which requires the particulars of the offence to be stated does not in terms further require that in an offence,like conspiracy the names of the co-conspirators should also be mentioned. Hence in England it is enough if the indictment states that the accused along with other persons unknown had committed the offence of criminal conspiracy. Though the statute law in India does not make it obligatory that the persons concerned in the crime of criminal conspiracy should be specifically named along with the person or persons charged in a particular trial, it is always advisable to give those particulars also in order to give a reasonable notice to the accused that he has been charged with having conspired with so and so (persons named), as also persons unnamed, to commit a certain offence. In this case the charge against the five accused persons with reference to section 120-B, Indian Penal Code, named only those five persons as the conspirators and omitted to name the approver also as having been privy to the conspiracy. This is clearly brought out with reference to the charge framed against the other four accused (who have been acquitted by the trial court as aforesaid). It states:-

cularity as a result of which the appellant had to be acquitted of that charge on appeal. If the charge under section 120-B had added the words "and other persons, known or unknown", there would have been no ground for a grievance on the part of the appellant.

But even so, in our opinion, the provisions of section 225, Code of Criminal Procedure, are clearly applicable to the facts and circumstances of the present case. It has not been shown to us how the omission to mention the name of the approver in the charge under section 120-B, Indian Penal Code, has misled the appellant or has occasioned a failure of justice. The prosecution case throughout has been, as is clear with reference to the petition of complaint, that the appellant with his subordinates in the Food Department had conspired to misappropriate the funds allocated to the procurement of oil-cake with a view to helping agriculturists with manure to raise more food crops. The approver has been very much in the picture all the time and, as a matter of fact, as found by the courts below, his evidence is the main plank in the prosecution case. Of course, there is the other corroborative evidence, as pointed out in the judgments of the courts below. The provisions of section 537 are equally attracted to this case. With reference to the provisions of that section it is pertinent to note that though the other accused had been acquitted by the trial court and though he was the only appellant in the High Court, he did not raise the points with reference to the alleged illegality or irregularity in the charge, before that court. Hence applying the Explanation to that section to this case, it cannot be urged that the omission in the charge has occasioned a failure of justice.