SHANKERLAL VISHWAKARMA Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The judgment in this Criminal Appeal shall also govern the disposal of Criminal Appeals 53/85, 94/85, and 925/85. This appeal as also Appeals 53/85 and 94/85 are by convicted accused persons, numbering five. Appeal No. 925/85 is by the State against acquittal of two other accused persons.

(2.) Between October, 196 7/07/1968 i.e. during an interval of about 10 months, pay bills of teachers, of the total amount of Rs.27,555/- of the establishment of' District Education Officer Raipur, marked Exs. P-6 to P-13, were encashed from Raipur Treasury. The amount of' those bills was obtained for the purpose of disbursement by Shankerlal Vishwakarma, who was at the relevant time, Assistant District Inspector of Schools, working in the office of District Education Officer, Raipur. Those pay bills were written out by Nand Kumar, a teacher attached to that office. One Premchand Bagh was a Section Clerk in that office who had checked those pay bills. Another official named Ramesh Shanker was also a Clerk who had written note-sheets with respect to those pay bills. Dattatreya Deshpandey was an Accountant in that office who had initialled and forwarded those bills along with note sheets to his officer viz. District Education Officer. Rameshwar Dayal and Mahesh Chandra Bose were the District Education Officers who had worked during the relevant period in different times.

(3.) The prosecution story briefly stated was that those bills were got prepared by Shankerlal Vishwakarma, A.D.I.S. through his clerk Nand Kumar. They were false and forged bills in the names of teachers who had not at all worked. The money obtained by Shankerlal Vishwakarma on the basis of those bills was defalcated by him instead of being disbursed to the teachers, who in fact, did not exist. Premchand Bagh, Ramesh Shanker and Dattatreya Deshpandey who belonged to the clerical staff, knew that those bills were false and forged and yet allowed those bills to be passed, by putting their own initials in token of checking or re-checking or by writing note-sheets. Rameshwar Dayal and Mahesh Chandra Bose who worked at different times during the relevant period as District Education Officers passed bills, knowing those bills to be false and fabricated. One Pyarelal Pandey who was an Auditor from A.G.M.P. attached to that office also helped in the conspiracy by his failure to point out the dubious character of the bills. It is the prosecution case that a conspiracy of wide ramification had taken place between all the aforesaid officials to commit various offences. They had also committed the offence of Criminal misconduct under S.5(1)(d)(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.