RAJDHAR DUBEY Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for bail in the case crime No. 375 of 1991 under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471, I.P.C., P.S. Duddhi, district Sonbhadra, wherein the state Bank of India, Govindpur branch, is said to have been cheated by Rajdher Dubey of the sum of Rs. 12,76,000.00. Besides he further is pointed to be involved in another case crime no. 424 of 1991 under Sections 467, 468 and 420 I.P.C. wherein this very applicant almost during the same period is alleged to have fraudulently withdrawn from the State Bank of India, Pipri branch, a sum of Rs. 56,81,986.00.

(2.) The prosecution case is that the cheque against which the applicant had withdrawn the amount of Rs. 12,76,000.00 had not been passed by the Bank and the applicants had used cheques from the Cheque Book which was earlier reported by him to have been lost. The Bank to facilitate the customers had been giving the passed cheques to the drawers in sealed cover to be carried to the other branch of the Bank under the belief that there would be no tampering with the sealed cover and replacement of the cheque passed by the forged ones. The applicant misused the facility. He withdrew the amount of Rs. 12,76,000.00 on the basis of substituted cheques in place of the passed cheques on 23/8/1991, 12/9/1991, 10/10/1991 and 31/10/1991 a could be gathered from the cheques themselves and the books of account of the Bank. The applicant further is alleged to have admitted in writing the above withdrawals as could be gathered from Annexure 1 filed with the affidavit of Badri Prasad, Assistant Manager, State Bank of India.

(3.) The counsel for the applicant argued that the State Bank of India, Govindpur Branch and the State Bank of India, Pipri branch, both had a meagre staff of four or five persons and in the cheating of the Bank they all had actively participated or also the fraudulent withdrawals could not have gone un-objected. So far as Annexure-1 of the counter affidavit of Badri Prasad. Assistant manager of the State Bank is concerned, it was argued that it had been obtained from the applicant by third degree methods. He, in this connection, tried to show that the applicant in fact had been taken into custody on 5/11/1991 and instead of being produced before the Magistrate on 6/11/1991 was kept under wrongful detention between 6/11/1991 and 12/11/1991. This case, according to him, it was last of all contended, was not such wherein bail should be denied for otherwise it would amount to inflictment of punishment before trial as a result of the connivance of the dishonest bank and police officials.