GANNULAL DEWANGAN Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Since both the revisions arise out of a common judgment, they are decided together by this common order.

(2.) Both the revisions arise out of the judgment dated 17.12.2013 passed by the Sessions Judge, Balod in Criminal Appeal No.77 of 2013 preferred by Gannulal Dewangan and Criminal Appeal No.78 of 2013 preferred by Arun Kumar. The appeals were preferred before the Court of Session against the judgment dated 30.6.2011 passed by the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Balod in Criminal Case No.110 of 2009. By the impugned judgment dated 17.12.2013, the Appellate Court convicted and sentenced the Applicants as under:

(3.) Facts of the case, in brief, are that on the relevant date, Applicant Arun Kumar was working at Jhalmala Vitaran Kendra of the erstwhile Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board as Assistant Grade-III and his duty was to collect amount of electricity bills. On the relevant date, Applicant Gannulal Dewangan was also working as Assistant Grade-III in the same office and his duty was to maintain computerised ledgers. As per the prosecution story, a forged electricity bill (Article 60) for Rs.11,718/- was allegedly generated by the Applicants in the name a consumer Baliram (died) in which Applicant Gannulal Dewangan had written name of Baliram in his own handwriting. It is further alleged that Applicant Arun Kumar collected the whole amount of Rs.11,718/- from Baliram and against the collection issued a counter slip (Article 4) which was only for a sum of Rs.24/-. At Serial No.35 of register, namely, Classified Abstract of Collection (CAC), Applicant Arun Kumar made entry of collection of Rs.24/- only. On 24.6.1996, Tarachand, son of Baliram, went to Junior Engineer Atmaram Bunker (PW2) and submitted before him the forged electricity bill and counter slip and made a request for inquiry. An inquiry was conducted by Executive Engineer. After inquiry, the Executive Engineer found both the Applicants and Auditor Rajesh Singh (coaccused) guilty. The Executive Engineer also gave a notice to the Applicants and Rajesh Singh to deposit the embezzled amount of Rs.11,718/-. Each of them deposited a sum of Rs.3,900/- on 25.6.1996. Thereafter, Junior Engineer Atmaram Bunker (PW2) submitted a written report (Ex.P3) in police station on the basis of which the offence was registered and during the course of investigation, relevant documents were seized. The seized documents were sent to the handwriting expert for examination. Opinion of the handwriting expert is Ex.P6 and the reason for the opinion is Ex.P7. As opined by the expert, in the electricity bill (Article 60), name of Baliram was manually written by Applicant Gannulal Dewangan and the entries were made in the counter slip (Article 4) and in the CAC register (Article 5) by Applicant Arun Kumar. On completion of the investigation, a charge-sheet was filed.