STATE Vs. T HUCHAIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE have heard the learned High Court Government Pleader on merits. We readily accept all that he has submitted, namely, that the misappropriation of funds of a Co-operative Society is not only an anti-social offence, that it is absolutely rampant that the result of this criminal activity is that the subordinate Courts are heavily burdened with these cases which are long drawn out and time consuming as they involve the examination of records, accounts and the like. The learned Counsel further submitted that in almost everyone of these transactions the accused are acquitted and the direct result of these acquittal orders is that, whereas, the objective of the law needs to be deterrent and the justice dispensation machinery must result in punishment of the guilty persons in order to send out a clear signal that the consequences of such criminal activity will be grave, that in actual effect, because the accused always gets acquitted the confidence has now grown among this class of employees that even if they misappropriate the money they will still get away with the offence. His submission is that it is eminently necessary that the Courts must severely punish the accused in each of these cases in order to put a full stop to these obnoxious and anti-social offences. His submission is that the accused in the present case was in charge of drawing the bills, collecting the amounts and disbursing the salaries, that he has not done so and has misappropriated an aggregate of Rs. 6301/- and that consequently, the order of acquittal ought to be reversed.

(2.) THIS Court has taken a serious view of this category of offences and there are no two opinions about the submission canvassed by the learned High Court Government Pleader, that it is essential that the guilty be punished as, apart from anything else, the small societies really cannot afford to lose their funds. Misappropriation of Co-operative society funds has now become so common and so rampant that the impression is current that converting the funds to one's own use is a fundamental right. The problem in our way is that in every single one of these cases the prosecution is so badly conducted that a virtual escape route is left open for the accused to happily secure an acquittal. To quote an example, even in the present instance the prosecution has led detailed evidence to indicate that the accused was an employee of the health unit, that his duty was to prepare bills, that he was required to collect the cash against those bills and that it was also his duty to disburse the amounts in question. What unfortunately has happened is that generalised evidence with regard to preparation of the bills and the other duties of the accused has been brought on record but it has not been pointed out particularly as far as the present accused are concerned as to who has signed the bill. The evidence of the Treasury officer is also useless because he has stated that as far as the present incident is concerned that he is unaware of the factual position and the sum total of the blunders committed by the prosecution, viz. , that it has not been established that as far as this incident was concerned that the accused encashed the cheque, that the amount was entrusted to him and that he has wrongfully converted it. All the generalised evidence is of no consequence if the specific requirements of law are not complied with.

(3.) WE do agree with the submission canvassed on behalf of the State that such offences should not go unpunished but the solution does not mean that the High Court can reverse acquittal orders without there being legal justification for doing so. The solution is that the prosecutors who conduct these cases in the Trial Court be specifically directed to ensure that the specific evidence establishing the guilt of the accused and the requisite evidence fully making out the ingredients of the charging sections is placed before the Trial Court so that in those of the cases where the offences are established the accused get rightfully convicted. These are all cases on documents and records, and if properly investigated and presented will all end in 100% convictions. That will put an immediate full stop to all these leakages.