“3. It is more than clear that the hire-purchase agreement with the financier was entered into much prior in time, whereafter the agreement of sale between A-2 and the complainant took place, and which was subject to the rights of the financier. It is even otherwise understandable that A-2 could not have passed a better title of the bus to the complainant than that she had acquired for herself under the hire-purchase agreement. Though we do not have the advantage of reading the hire-purchase agreement, but as normally drawn it would have contained the clause that in the event of the failure to make payment of instalment/s the financier had the right to resume possession of the vehicle. Since the financier's agreement with A-2 contained that clause of resumption of possession, that has to be read, if not specifically provided in the agreement, as part of the sale agreement between A-2 and the complainant. It is, in these circumstances, the financier took possession of the bus from the complainant with the aid of the appellants. It cannot thus be said that the appellants, in any way, had committed the offence of theft and that too, with the requisite mensrea and requisite dishonest intention. The assertion of rights and obligations, accruing to the appellants under the aforesaid two agreements, wiped out any dishonest pretence in that regard from which it could be inferred that they had
