SRIPADA SINAI DUCLO Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgement will dispose of both these appeals as the two appeals arise out of one and the same incident. The case has arisen out of a complaint filed by Jeronimo D' Souza (who will hereinafter be referred to as "the complainant") against Duclo (who will hereinafter be referred to as "the accused").

(2.) The accused in this case has been convicted on 21-6-1971 under Section 313 read with Section 421 No. 5 and Section 55 No. 4 of the Portuguese Penal Code, by the Court of Mapuca and has been sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment. He has beep also sentenced to pay an amount of 21.146/00 (escudos) convertible into rupees at the rate of 6 escudos per rupee as compensation for the losses suffered by the complainant.

(3.) The case of the prosecution may be briefly narrated as under : In the year 1959, the complainant was working as the Head of the Post and Telegraph Office at Mapuca. The accused was working in the said Office under the complainant. One Laad was in charge of receiving all telegraphic messages to be transmitted and the charges payable thereon. The daily receipts of the said charges used to be handed over to the complainant who was the head of the office. According to the instructions of the complainant, Laad was asked to hand over the money to the accused instead of directly giving it to the complainant. At a later stage, sometime in October, 1959, the complainant entrusted the accused with receiving directly from the public, the charges in respect of the telegrams. Such charges received used to be entered into a book which was bearing the number 817. The total amount received during a day used to be entered into another book bearing number 853. The accused used to hand over the amount collected by him to the complainant as per the entries made in book 853 at the end of the day. The complainant had another book privately kept by him, wherein he used to note down the amounts received by him from the accused. The complainant suddenly started noticing that there were some shortages and that he had to make good those shortages out of his own pocket. He then discovered that the shortages were due to some foul tricks played by the accused. The accused, it was alleged, whilst entering the amount in the books used to enter the amount of a lower figure and after the cash was handed over to the complainant used to increase the figure. This was discovered sometime on the 12th August, 1960. The difference between the amount actually received by the accused and the amount actually handed over by him to the complainant was alleged to be 21000/00 (escudos).