RAPARLA VENKATA GOPALA RATNAM Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Criminal Appeal No. 1387 of 2005 is filed by A1, Criminal Appeal No. 1420 of 2005 is filed by A2 and Criminal Appeal No. 1440 of 2005 is filed by A3 against the judgment dated 05th August, 2005 passed by the Special Judge for SPE and ACB cases, Vijayawada in C.C. No. 23 of 1992. The appellants were convicted by the trial Court for the offences punishable under Sections 7, 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for short 'the Act') and were convicted for the said offences. Each of them were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years and also to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000/- each for the offence under Section 7 of the Act and also further sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of two years each and to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000/- each for the offence under Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Act. The substantive sentences passed against them were directed to run concurrently.

(2.) Challenging the said order of conviction and sentence, the appellants/A1 to A3 filed the aforesaid appeals separately. For the convenient sake, the appellants in the above appeals will be referred as A1 to A3 as was done by the trial Court. A1 was the Executive Engineer, C.E.R.P., Special Sub-division, Machilipatnam, A2 was the Deputy Executive Engineer, C.E.R.P., Sub-Division III, Challapalli and A3 was the Assistant Executive Engineer, C.E.R.P., Sub-division, Challapalli at relevant time. They were indicted of having taking the amount of Rs. 25,000/- each from PW.1, a civil contractor as illegal gratification for passing the pending bill in relation to the work executed by him and accepted on 22.07.1991 and accordingly, they were tried for the charges under Sections 7 and 13(1)(d)(ii) read with 13(2) of the Act. At the conclusion of the trial, they were convicted and sentenced by the trial Court to punishment as mentioned above.

(3.) Briefly, the prosecution case, which led to the conviction of the appellants, is the following: