MAHENDER SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present criminal revision petition has been filed challenging the judgment, dated 17.10.2004, passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Faridabad, whereby the appeal filed by the petitioner, Mahender Singh, son of Budh Singh, resident of House No. 80, Vishnu Colony, Ballabgarh, District Faridabad, impugning the judgment of conviction dated 10.3.2014, and the order of sentence dated 13.3.2014, passed by learned Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Faridabad, was dismissed.

(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner was a Lower Division Clerk in the Haryana State Electricity Board at Faridabad and had never acted as a Cashier; the prosecution witnesses had very fairly conceded in their depositions that the electricity charges were never paid to the petitioner; the stand that the petitioner was not working as a Cashier was fortified from the fact that he was never suspended or charge-sheet was ever issued to him; and that on the basis of conjectures and surmises, both the learned Courts below have held the petitioner guilty.

(3.) I have heard learned counsel for the petitioner and with his able assistance gone through the material available on record. Brief facts of the case are that the Sub Divisional Officer, Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, Faridabad, lodged a report with the police that the petitioner, Mahender Singh, was posted as Lower Division Clerk in the Sub-Division since 3.4.2007. He was deputed to receive cash from the consumers of their electricity bills against receipts and to enter the received amount in the Consumer Cash Register. The petitioner issued fictitious receipts to the consumers and pocketed the money. When the consumers came to know that the amount deposited by them was not credited to the Consumer Cash Register, then they brought the said fact to the notice of the higher authorities. The petitioner absented himself from duty with effect from 3.8.2007 and in spite of letters sent to him to explain the reason, he failed to do so.