RAMCHARAN Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal has been preferred by the appellant/accused against the judgment dt. 25.7.2005 passed in Special Case No.9/1997 by the Special Judge and First Additional Sessions Judge, Indore whereby the appellant has been convicted for the offence punishable under Section 409 of IPC. Resultantly, Section 5(1)(c) read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 and Section 477-A of IPC and sentenced to undergo RI of one year with fine of Rs.

(2.) ,500/- for the offence punishable under Section 409 IPC. He has also been sentenced to undergo RI of one year with a fine of Rs. 2,500/- under Section 477-A of IPC with default stipulation. 2. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant/accused, Ranmcharan Khandelwal was posted as Incharge of drugs and instrument section of MY Hospital, Indore and MTH Hospital, Indore and his duty was to receive, store and supply instruments and medicines required for operations in both the Hospitals and for its audit in theyear 1982-83 conducted by the office authorities of the Accountant General Office, Gwalior M.P. with respect to audit conducted from year 1978-79 and 1982-83, it has been found that the total medicines valuing Rs. 20,12,538.51/- were misappropriated and after verification of the same, report was lodged with the Economic Offence Investigation Bureau of the State and after investigation, the challan was filed against the appellant and in charge of the Department Dr. A.P. Tiwari and convicted the appellant Ramcharan Khandelwal for the charges framed against him and sentenced him as mentioned in para 1 of the judgment.

(3.) ON perusal of record and after considering the lengthy argument from both the sides the origin of this case is the test audit report for the year 1982-1983 which has been given after detailed enquiry and audit reports for the year 1978 to 1983. The said audit report is given by Ramprasad PW-2 who in his statement after mentioning the irregularities committed in receiving and supplying the catgut, saline bottles and dressing materials etc. found that receipts of 20,12,538/- were not available and on comparing the issue registers and receiving registers receipts of expenditure in the matter of SMH Hospital were not available. The audit report submitted by him is Ex.P/7 which is having signatures of his Senior Officer Sharma also but on cross-examination he has admitted that audit is conducted in the M.Y. Hospital every year. He does not know how many times verification of stock is done in a year. He further admitted in cross-examination that he has not seen the documents regarding stock verification. At the time of audit he has seen the audit report of the year 1982. He further admitted that one copy of audit report by AGMP is sent to MY Hospital, one copy was kept in the Directorate and one copy is kept in AGMP Office. He further admitted that regarding receipts which were not available he has not taken any statement. He did not take any statement of appellant accused. He further admitted in para 12 that due to lack of time and limited members in the audit team, he never tried to compare the entries of the indent with the stock register of concerned ward. The report given by him was preliminary report and he has given opinion that the audit will require inspection of more documents and audit will take time. After that he has not submitted any report.