Full Judgment
Kanhaiya Lal, J.
1. This is an application under Section 185 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the determination of the question of the competency of the Magistrate at Basti to try a complaint against an accused under Sections 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. The allegation of the complainant is that the accused sent notices to different persons, including the complainant, offering to act as a Commissi on Agent at Bombay for such persons as may choose to entrust their business to him, and that in pursuance of that notice the complainant appointed the accused as a Commission Agent and advanced to him Rs. 10,000 on the understanding that the accused was to purchase and sell goods at Bombay on his behalf. The complaint was, that the accused had no bona fide intention to carry on the business of a Commission Agent at Bombay, and that he dishonestly obtained money from the complainant under the pretext that he would carry on such business and wrongfully appropriated what was paid to him from time to time, including any profits derived from, the purchase and sale of the goods on behalf of the complainant. The entire negotiation between the parties is said to have been carried on by correspondence. So far as the charge of cheating is concerned, if the allegations made by the complainant are true, the offence, if any, is triable as much at Bombay as at Basti; but, so far as the charge of a criminal breach of trust goes, it can only be enquired into and tried by the Court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the offence was committed or any part of the property which is the subject of the offence was received or retained by the accused. The Magistrate at Basti had, therefore, jurisdiction to try the former charge but not the latter. The learned Counsel, who appears for the complainant, states that the complainant is prepared to proceed with the former charge in the Court of the Magistrate at Basti and to drop the latter for the present. Section 179 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is controlled in respect of certain offences by Section 181 of the Code of Criminal Procedure; and, as pointed oat in Cham Chandra v. Emperor 37 Ind. Cas. 145 : 44 C. 595 : 21 C.W.N. 820 : 25 C.I.J. 165 : 18 Cr. L.J. 81, no question of convenience or expediency can be considered under Section 185 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. That section deals only with questions of competency when they are involved in doubt. There is no such doubt in this case. The Court below is, therefore, directed to proceed with the trial under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and to drop, so far as that Court is concerned, the charge under Section 406 of the said Code.