Vyas, J.:—

Now, the offences under ss. 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code are non-cognisable offences. An offence under s. 420 of the Code is a cognisable offence. Now, Mr. Somjee for accused No. 1 has invited our attention to s. 196(a) of the Criminal Procedure Code and s. 196(a) says that an offence of criminal conspiracy to commit non-cognisable offences cannot be taken cognisance of by a Court unless there is a sanction by the State Government or a Chief Presidency Magistrate. Mr. Somjee contends that since offences under ss. 465, 468 and 471 are non-cognisable offences and since an off once of criminal conspiracy to commit such offences cannot be taken cognisance of without the sanction as required by s. 196(a) of the Criminal Procedure Code and since no such sanction was obtained from the State Government or the Chief Presidency Magistrate in this case, the trial of the accused was void ab initio. It is true, says Mr. Somjee, that an offence of criminal conspiracy to conrtnit an offence of cheating under s, 420 of the Indian Penal Code is cognisable and the taking of cognisance of that offence by a Court requires no sanction either from the State Government or from the Chief Presidency Magistrate or from any officer. But, Mr. Somjee says that in this case the charge was one composite charge under s. 120-B read with ss. 465, 468, 471 and 420 read with s. 511, that the trial was one and that this is not a case where the trial for an offence under s. 420 could have been severed from the trial for offences under ss. 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code. Therefore, says Mr. Somjee, since the trial of the accused for an offence of criminal conspiracy to commit offences under ss. 465, 468 and 471 was void ab initio for want of sanction, the whole trial was void and bad.

Mr. Desai for the State of Bombay makes a distinction between the object of an offence and the means to achieve that object. He says that the object of the accused was to cheat the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, Bombay, and to induce the Chief Controller to grant to the Goldberg India Ltd. an import licence for the amount of Rs. 28,927 and that the means which the accused employed in order to achieve that object were to forge an auditors' certificate and to use that certificate as a genuine document for carrying out the fraud or deception on the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, Bombay. In support of his contention that such a distinction between the object of an offence and the means employed to achieve that object is a perfectly valid distinction, Mr. Desai has invited our attention to a decision of this Court in Emperor v. Ramchandra Rango.(8) In the course of his judgment in that case Mr. Justice Wassoodew observed thus (p. 112):—

“If the object is to commit non-cognisable offence, undoubtedly sanction under that section is essential to give jurisdiction to the Court. The object of the conspiracy, however, has to be determined at the initial stage not only by reference to the sections of the penal enactment referred to in the complaint but also upon the facts narrated therein and the evidence tendered before the Magistrate. There is recognisable difference between the object of a conspiracy and the means adopted to realise that object. If they are separable, then, even if the object is sought to be attained by resort to non-cognisable offences, sanction is not necessary. It does not matter if the object is erroneously mixed up with the statement of method of attaining it in the body of the complaint.”

This decision was followed in Paresh Nath v. Emperor.(9) The decision in Emperor v. Ramchandra Rango is a decision of a Division Bench of our own Court. We must follow that decision and hold that since the object of the accused in this case was to cheat the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, Bombay, and thereby induce that office to issue in favour of the Goldberg India Ltd. an import licence for Rs. 28,927, that is, since the object of the accused was to commit an offence under s. 420, the taking cognisance of that offence required no sanction and since the commission of offences under ss. 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code was only a means to that end, the trial was not vitiated simply because no sanction was obtained for prosecuting the accused for an offence of criminal conspiracy to commit non-cognisable offences under ss. 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

Next Mr. Somjee has drawn our attention to the language of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code itself and he says that the provisions of s. 420 of the Code will not apply to the facts of this case. He says that s. 420 would only apply when the offence of cheating was committed first and there was a dishonest inducement of the person cheated thereafter. He says that before a Court could convict a person of an offence of attempting to cheat, namely an offence under s. 420 read with s. 511 of the Indian Penal Code, it must be satisfied that the offence of cheating was first committed by the accused person and that thereafter he had attempted to induce the person cheated dishonestly to do a certain thing. We are of the view that this reading of the section by Mr. Somjee is not a correct reading. There is no doubt that an offence under s. 420 read with s. 511 would be committed by a person who attempts to cheat another person and thereby attempts to induce him to do one or the other of the acts mentioned in s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code. In this contention of Mr. Somjee, therefore, we do not see any force.

Then Mr. Somjee has advanced another contention before us in regard to the applicability of s. 420 to the facts of the present case. Section 420 reads thus:

“Whoever cheats and thereby dishonestly induces the person deceived to deliver any property to any person or to make, alter or destroy the whole or any part of a valuable security etc. etc.”

Mr. Somjee contends that an offence under s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code is an offence against property and that, therefore, the prosecution must prove that before the accused person, namely the alleged cheat, induced another person to deliver a particular thing, the said thing was the property of somebody else, i.e somebody other than the accused. Mr. Somjee's argument obviously is that since the import licence which the Goldberg India Ltd. attempted to get from the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, Bombay, was of no value to the said office or to the State so long as it was with that office and had not gone into the possession of the accused, the licence could not be said to be “property” within the meaning of s. 420 and if the office of the Chief Controller of Imports was induced to part with that licence in favour of the accused, it could not be said that the accused had induced it to deliver “property” to them. It is obvious that for sustaining this argument, Mr. Somjee relies on the wording of the heading of Chapter XVII of the Indian Penal Code. The heading is: “All offences against property”. Now, the heading of a chapter does not control the language of the sections to be found in that particular chapter. Orders in his “Construction of Deeds and Statutes”, 3rd Edition, says at page 227:

“Headings—These are in some modern statutes since 1845 prefixed to sections or sets of sections and are regarded as preambles to those sections. This is stated in Maxwell and was quoted with approval by Farwell, L.J, in Fletcher v. Birkenhead,(10) who added: ‘Taking the doctrine so expressed as a guide in such a case I cannot read prefatory words of this kind so as to strike out plain words, but only for the purpose of explaining doubtful expressions in the body of the section.’ The same rule, in fact, as that applied to preambles, as stated above. With reference to the cross-headings in the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, Lord Goodard, C.J said: ‘But while the Court is entitled to look at the headings in an Act of Parliament to resolve any doubt they may have as to ambiguous words, the law is quite clear that you cannot use such headings to give a different effect to clear words of the section where there cannot be any doubt as to their ordinary meaning’. So Lord Darling in delivering the judgment of the Judicial Committee in Martins v. Fowler,(11) said: ‘It is clear that such headings as those referred to (headings to sections) may be regarded as preambles to the provisions following them. This is so stated in Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes and has received judicial authority from Farwell, L.J, in Fletcher v. Birkenhead Corpn.(12) and also from the Privy Council in Union Steamship Co. of New Zealand v. Melbourne Harbour Trust Commissioners,(13) to mention no others’.”

It is clear, therefore, on the authority of the several judicial decisions referred to in the abovementioned quotation, that the language of the heading of a chapter does not control the sections to be found in that particular chapter. It is to be regarded only as a preamble to the sections which follow. In our view, the word “property” occurring in s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code does not necessarily mean that the thing of which a delivery is dishonestly desired by the person who cheats must have a money value or a market value in the hand of the person cheated. Even if the thing has no money value in the hand of the person cheated, but becomes a thing of value in the hand of the person who may get possession of it as a result of the cheating practised by him, it would still fall within the connotation of the term “property”. Now, if the word “property” in s. 420 is taken to mean a thing which has a value while it is in the hand of the person cheated, even so in this particular case we are of the view that the import licence which was sought to be got by the accused from the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, Bombay, was property within the meaning of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code. In re E.K Krishnan,(14) a question had arisen whether a licence for the driving of motor cars and other vehicles was property. It was not denied of course that such a licence was property in the hands of the licensee and it is not denied in the present case also that the import licence, if it had been given to the Goldberg India Ltd. by the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, would have been property in the hands of the licensees. It was argued in the abovementioned Madras case that the licence in question in that case had not become property until it had reached the hands of the licensee and that so long as it was in the possession of the licensing officer, it was not property but was merely a worthless piece of paper. The High Court was prepared to agree that not every tangible object might be property, for instance they said that a piece of discarded rubbish thrown away in the street was perhaps not property. Their Lordships used the word ‘perhaps’ as they were not entirely sure that even the discarded rubbish was not property. They said that perhaps it was not property. Then Their Lordships went on to say that they did not think that the licence with which they were dealing in that case could be placed in the same category as the discarded rubbish. The Court was mindful of the fact in that case that the licence had no monetary value to the licensing authority. But it was observed that, apart from the intrinsic value of paper on which it was written, it had a substantial potential value. As soon as the licence reached the hands of the licensee, it acquired an actual value and the decision in that case proceeded on the basis that if a particular thing has got a potential value as distinguished from its actual value, the potential value would be sufficient to call that thing “property” within the meaning of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code. The pertinent observations which the Court made in this context were (p. 584):

“Nor can it be said that an object becomes property only when it comes into the hands of some person who has an actual use for it……… The licensing authority was not willing to part with the licence except to the person in whose name it was issued and he was parting with it for valuable consideration paid by the licensee. We do not, therefore, think that because to the licensing authority the licence was of little or no actual value it was not property.”

These observations would apply to the facts of the present case, because here also the office of the Chief Controller of Imports was not willing to part with the import licence except to the person in whose name it would be issued and who would have to pay valuable consideration for it. In the case before us there is no doubt that the licence had potential value even when it was in the hands of the Chief Controller of Imports. The policy of issuing import licences had a considerable bearing on the question of national economy. If more imports come into the country, it is obvious that the exchange conditions in the country would worsen, the trade conditions would suffer and the property of the country as a whole would be jeopardised. It is, therefore, that the authority issuing such licences had to satisfy itself that certain conditions were fulfilled before the licences could be given. Before an import licence would be given, the licensing authority would examine the question how the national economy would be affected by the grant and from that point of view there is no doubt that an import licence has got a considerable potential value and that being so, in the light of the abovementioned authority, we have no difficulty in holding that an import licence, even when it is in the hands of the licensing authority, is property within the meaning of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code.

In Local Government v. Gangaram,(15) also, it was observed that a certificate that a person had passed an examination was property within the meaning of ss. 415 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. Therefore, a person who obtained a certificate from a Deputy Inspector of Schools by stating untruly that he passed the examination in a certain year, was guilty of an offence punishable under s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code. In the course of his judgment, Mr. Dhobley A.J.C said (p. 231):

“It is contended for the accused that the certificate cannot be called ‘property’ as it has no value whatsoever, it being merely a piece of paper. Whether a certain article is or is not ‘property’ does not depend upon its possessing a money or market value. An article may not fetch any money in the market and still it may have a value to certain persons. In my opinion, the certificate which the accused obtained from the Deputy Inspector had a special value to both of them, though that value could not be computed in money.”

This would also show that although a particular thing may not have actual money value or a market value in the hand of a certain person, it may still have potential value and would be property within the meaning of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code. It is, therefore, clear that even if the term “property” be construed to mean a thing which has a value in the hand of the person cheated, even so the import licence in this particular case, which certainly had a potential value, would be property within the meaning of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code.

On the other hand, if the word “property” is construed to mean that which acquires actual value only after it goes into the hand of the person who cheats, even then there is no doubt that the provisions of s. 420 must apply to this case. For this, no authority is needed. Nobody disputes that the import licence was a thing of considerable actual value to the licensees, namely the Goldberg India Ltd. Therefore, Mr. Somjee's submission, namely that the provisions of s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code would not apply to the facts of this case as the import licence was not property within the meaning of s. 420, has no force.

If we examine the position in the English Law on this subject, we find that there is a section which corresponds to s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code and that section is s. 32 of the Larceny Act, 1916, as amended by the Criminal Justice Act, 1948. Section 32 of the Larceny Act says:

“Every person who by any false pretence with intent to defraud, obtains from any other person any chattel, money, or valuable security, or causes or procures any money to be paid, or any chattel or valuable security to be delivered to himself or to any other person for the use or benefit or on account of himself or any other person or with intent to defraud or injure any other person, fraudulently causes or induces any other person to execute, make, accept, endorse or destroy the whole or any part of any valuable security…………shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding five years.”

In s. 420 of the Indian Penal Code, the word used is “property”. In s. 32 of the Larceny Act, the corresponding word used is “chattel” and it was held in The Queen v. Martin,(16) post, p. 1397, that it was not necessary that the chattel should be in existence when the false pretence was made. We see no reason why we should not construe the word “property” used in the analogous s. 420 of our Code as meaning that the thing in respect of which the offence of cheating is committed may not be property in the hand of the person cheated, but becomes property only upon its passing into the hand of the person cheating.

In any case, there is no doubt that the import licence which the accused attempted to obtain from the office of the Chief Controller of Imports was a valuable security, because the import licence would be evidence of the title of the person possessing it to import foreign goods into India. Therefore, irrespective of whether the thing which the accused attempted to obtain from the office of the Chief Controller of Imports, namely the import licence, was property or not within the meaning of s. 420, it was certainly valuable security and from that point of view also, the offence of attempting to cheat, namely an offence under s. 420 read with s. 511, was committed by the accused in this case, because we find that s. 420 says:

“Whoever cheats and thereby dishonestly induces the person deceived to deliver……to any person……anything……which is signed or sealed and which is capable of being converted into a valuable security, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.”

In Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, Bengal v. Daulatram Mudi,(17) it was held that a transit pass (it was a forest pass) without which no forest produce could be removed was a valuable security within the meaning of s. 30 of the Indian Penal Code. It is obvious that an import licence without which no foreign goods could be imported would be a valuable security and, therefore, the words of s. 420 “or to make, alter or destroy the whole or any part of a vaulable security” would in any event apply to this case and there would in any event be committed an offence under s. 420 read with s. 511, provided of course the prosecution establishes the facts which are alleged against the accused.

[The judgment then proceeds to deal with the appeals on merits and confirms the order of conviction and sentence passed by the lower Court.]

Bavdekar J.— I agree with my learned brother. I will add a few words on the question as to whether it amounted to cheating by the two appellants to obtain a licence by using a fogged auditors' certificate. It is contended on behalf of the appellants that inasmuch as the offence under s. 420 is an offence against property, the document in this case which it is alleged the two appellants wanted to obtain from the Controller must be shown to be property when it was delivered and it could not have been a document which was property in his hands. It has got to be remembered, however, that all the offences in the Chapter are not offences against property, e.g, the offence of cheating itself. It could be committed by a person who, with the requisite intention, practises deception and induces the person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he was not so deceived provided the act or omission causes or is likely to cause damage or harm to that person in body, mind or reputation. It is obvious that this is not an offence against property.

The offence in s. 420 corresponds to the offence of false pretences under the Larceny Act of 1916, s. 32 of which lays down as follows:

“Every person who by any false pretence (1) with intent to defraud, obtains from any other person any chattel, money, or valuable security, or causes or procures any money to be paid, or any chattel or valuable security to be delivered to himself or to any other person for the use or benefit or on account of himself or any other person……”

In R. v. Boulton,(18) the prisoner was convicted of obtaining by false pretence, from a servant of a railway company a railway ticket of the company for a journey by one of their trains and Wightman J. reserved the question whether the obtaining of such a ticket was obtaining a chattel of the company, with intent to cheat and defraud the company of the same, within the meaning of the corresponding earlier enactment 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 29, s. 53. After consideration, Pollock, C.B said that the Judges were unanimously of the opinion that it came within the statute which makes it criminal to obtain a chattel by a false pretence. The ticket while in the hands of the party using it was an article of value entitling him to travel without further payment and the fact that it was returned at the end of the journey did not affect the question. As in the case of larceny, to constitute an obtaining of a chattel, etc., by false pretences under the Larceny Act, there must be an intention to deprive the owner wholly of his property, it has been questioned whether R. v. Boulton, was rightly decided though it was subsequently approved by the Court of Criminal Appeal in R. v. Chapman,(19) but in so far as it decided that the railway tocket was a chattel because while it was in the hands of the party using it, it was an article of value, its authority has never been doubted. It seems to me that the argument of potential value ultimately reduces itself to this argument because an article apparently has a potential value only because it has got an actual value in the hands of the person who obtains it by deception.

In the second instance, I think that the licence in this case would also be a valuable security for the reason that by that licence a right would have been created in the licensee to import goods. It is true, as has been pointed out on behalf of the appellants, that the goods could only be imported after payment was made and the permission to open a letter of credit was obtained. But these things do not make any difference to the fact that by the licence a right was actually created. A licence, e.g, to use a hotel room does not fail to create a right merely because it may be subject to payment of rent for the use of the room.

Appeals dismissed.

M.W.P