Quantity Of FICN Or Counterfeit Notes Recovered Is Immaterial For Attracting S. 489B IPC: Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court held that the quantity of FICN (Fake Indian Currency Notes) or counterfeit notes recovered is immaterial for attracting Section 489B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).

The Court was hearing a batch of Criminal Appeals arising out of the reference by which the Chief Justice constituted a Larger Bench for deciding the same.

A Full Bench comprising Justice Debangsu Basak, Justice Jay Sengupta, and Justice Tirthankar Ghosh observed, “For attracting the provisions of Section 489B of the Indian Penal Code, the quantity of FICN/counterfeit notes recovered is immaterial. … Where a substantial amount of FICN or counterfeit currency is found in the possession of an individual or collectively held by multiple persons, the same shall not be deemed to be dormant possession but instead would be indicative of active transportation.”

Senior Advocates Sourav Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Banerjee, Advocates Dutta Gupta, and Sabir Ahmed appeared for the Appellants, while Public Prosecutor Debasish Roy and Advocate Partha Pratim Das appeared for the Respondents.

Case Background

The following terms of reference arose in this case –

1) Whether the aid of ‘presumption’ is available when the seizure of FICN is effected from the possession of an individual?

2) If quantity/volume of FICN is a ground of ‘presumption’, what would be the cut off number for presuming that the ‘possession’ was for the purpose of ‘otherwise traffics in’?

3) When substantial number of FICN are recovered from the possession of a security personnel associated with the Government i.e. Police, CISF, Defence Forces etc. can it be presumed that the ingredients of the term ‘otherwise traffics in’ used in Section 489B of the Indian Penal Code is automatically attracted?

4) Do seizure from the possession of an individual of High Quality Counterfeit Notes (as referred to in the provisions of UAPA, 1967), opined by an Expert automatically attract the provisions of Section 489B of the Indian Penal Code?

Court’s Observations

The High Court in the above context of the case, said, “In case of trial of an offence under Section 489B of the Indian Penal Code, specific charges in distinct language must be framed by the trial Courts so that the accused is able to understand and answer the charges framed against him.”

The Court added that it would be the duty of the prosecution to lay down the foundational facts regarding the ingredients of the offence relating to Section 489B of the IPC.

“It would be also incumbent upon the accused to divulge facts which are within his special knowledge regarding the possession of fake currency in course of examination under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Mere silence on the part of the accused is a telling circumstance as has been held in Ponnusamy (supra)”, it noted.

The Court clarified that such propositions would apply to all persons, irrespective of the fact whether such an individual is a civilian or a government servant.

“In respect of the fourth point of the terms of the reference relating to high quality counterfeit currency notes, the same is of no relevance as the quantity or quality of counterfeit notes is not relevant for the purposes of attracting Section 489B of the Indian Penal Code. Thus, it would be immaterial whether the counterfeit currency note(s) so recovered are ordinarily fake or high-quality counterfeit currency”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the High Court answered the reference.

Cause Title- Anikul @ Anikul Islam & Anr. v. The State of West Bengal (Case Number: C.R.A. 123 of 2019)

Appearance:

Appellants: Senior Advocates Sourav Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Banerjee, Advocates Dutta Gupta, Sabir Ahmed, Tapan Dutta Gupta, Parvej Anam, Rituparna Ghosh, Sourav Sardar, Soumyajit Das Mahapatra, Madhurai Sinha, Upasana Banerjee, Arnab Saha, Abhimanyu Banerjee, Nahid Ahmed, Satadru Lahiri, Safdar Azam, Abdur Rakib, Shraman Sarkar, Dhiman Banerjee, Megahid Mehedi, Sataroop Purkayestha, Musharraf Alam SK, Jagriti Bhattacharyya, Abhishek Chakraborty, Hamidur Rahaman, Debanshu Ghorai, Avinabha Mukherjee, Sailendranath Chakrabotry, Anshunath Chakraborty, Jhuma Sen, Swastika Chatterjee, Sneha Bera, Arindam Jana, Sumanta Ganguly, Shahan Shah, Yuvraj Chatterjee, Rahul Surtari, Soumen Barman, Ramdulal Manna, Manju Manna (Dey), Sayan Mukherjee, Amanul Islam, Sourav Mukherjee, and Ankita Roy.

Respondents: Public Prosecutor Debasish Roy, AGPs Anwar Hossain, Manisha Sharma, APP Faria Hossain, Advocates Partha Pratim Das, Sukanya Bhattacharya, Md. Kutubuddin, Anasuya Sinha, Manasi Roy, and Baisali Basu.

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