Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

500) stationed at the Coimbatore Airport, Coimbatore is against the terms of the hypothecation deed dated 01.5.1997 and 20.9.1997 will amount to theft, criminal breach of trust, and cheating which are offences punishable under section 378 (Theft), 403 (Dishonest Misappropriation of Property), 405 (Criminal Breach of Trust), 415 (Cheating), 425 (Mischief) of the Indian Penal Code. No notice was given to IOC in this regard."

The relevant averments in the complaint in C.C. No.286/1998 (Alandur Court) read as under :-

13. The High Court was, therefore, justified in rejecting the contention of the respondents that the criminal proceedings should be quashed in view of the pendency of several civil proceedings.

Re : Point No.(ii)

14. This takes us to the question whether the allegations made in the complaint, when taken on their face value as true and correct, constitute offences defined under sections 378, 403, 405, 415 and 425 IPC ? Learned counsel for the appellant restricted his submissions only to sections 405, 415 and 425, thereby fairly conceding that the averments in the complaint do not contain the averments necessary to make out the ingredients of the offence of theft (section 378) or dishonest misappropriation of property (section 403).

Section 405

17. We will next consider whether the allegations in the complaint make out a case of criminal breach of trust under section 405 which is extracted below :

"405. Criminal breach of trust.  Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property, dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property, or dishonestly uses or disposes of that property in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract, express or implied, which he has made touching the discharge of such trust, or wilfully suffers any other person so to do, commits "criminal breach of trust".
".a serious dispute has been raised by the learned counsel  as to whether on the face of the allegations, an offence of criminal breach of trust is constituted or not. In our view, the expression 'entrusted with property' or 'with any dominion over property' has been used in a wide sense in Section 405, I.P.C. Such expression includes all cases in which goods are entrusted, that is, voluntarily handed over for a specific purpose and dishonestly disposed of in violation of law or in violation of contract. The expression 'entrusted' appearing in Section 405, I.P.C. is not necessarily a term of law. It has wide and different implications in different contexts. It is, however, necessary that the ownership or beneficial interest in the ownership of the property entrusted in respect of which offence is alleged to have been committed must be in some person other than the accused and the latter must hold it on account of some person or in some way for his benefit. The expression 'trust' in Section 405, I.P.C. is a comprehensive expression and has been used to denote various kinds of relationship like the relationship of trustee and beneficiary, bailor and bailee, master and servant, pledger and pledgee. When some goods are hypothecated by a person to another person, the ownership of the goods still remains with the person who has hypothecated such goods. The property in respect of which criminal breach of trust can be committed must necessarily be the property of some person other than the accused or the beneficial interest in or ownership of it must be in other person and the offender must hold such property in trust for such other person or for his benefit. In a case of pledge, the pledged article belongs to some other person but the same is kept in trust by the pledgee. In the instant case, a floating charge was made on the goods by way of security to cover up credit facility. In our view, in such case for disposing of the goods covering the security against credit facility, the offence of criminal breach of trust is not committed." (emphasis supplied)