STATE OF H.P. Vs. BABU RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal, by the State, is directed against the judgment of Special Judge, Nahan, whereby the respondents, who were sent up for trial for offences punishable under sections 468, 471, 420, 120-B of the Indian penal Code and Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act by the Anti-Corruption Zone, Nahan, have been acquitted.

(2.) PROSECUTION story, as per record, is like this. In the years 1989-90 and 1990-91, works of raising nursery and maintenance of Bridal Path were undertaken in the Forest Beat Jarwa. Respondent Babu Ram was the Forest Guard of that Beat while Ram Lal and Faquir Singh, respondents were the Block Officers of a group of Forest Beats, which included the aforesaid Jarwa, Panog Beat. Allegation against the respondents was that they, in connivance with each other and the Range Officer J.C. Katar, who is no more, prepared bogus record of engagement of labourers for the aforesaid jobs in the form of muster rolls. Some of the Whether reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? labourers, named in those muster rolls, had not been engaged at all, some of them even did not exist and to some others, named in the muster rolls, lesser amounts of money had been paid than those shown against their names in the muster rolls. Lagnu Ram (PW-4), Jagat Ram PW-5 and Kundan Singh (PW-16) were alleged to have never been engaged as labourers by the respondents nor did they work in connection with the aforesaid two jobs, but in the muster rolls their names were entered and they were shown to have been paid certain amounts of money mentioned against their names and their signatures against their names had been forged. Five fictitious names were entered in the muster rolls. Those names were of Ran Singh son of Sunder Singh, Guman Singh, Surat Singh, Amar Singh, Kamna son of Jeetu and Basti Ram son of Nathu. They were shown to have been engaged as labourers and wages were shown to have been paid as mentioned in the muster rolls, but in fact no persons by such names were there in the villages they were shown to be residents of in the muster rolls. Further it was alleged that in some of the muster rolls Jagat Ram (PW-5), Singha Ram (PW-6), Rattan Singh (PW- 7), Prithi Singh (PW-8) and Jalam Singh (PW-9) were shown to have worked for a larger number of days than the number of days they actually worked for and consequently larger amounts of money than those actually payable to them were shown to have been paid, but the said persons were paid lesser amounts than those shown in the muster rolls.

(3.) TRIAL Court has not believed the prosecution version that PW-2 Jeetu, PW-3 Ganga Ram, PW-4 Lagnu Ram, PW-5 Jagat Ram and PW-16 Kundan Singh had never been engaged as labourers holding that even though some of these witnesses have denied their signatures on the muster rolls and the opinion evidence of the hand-writing expert is also there that their purported signatures on the muster rolls do not tally with their specimen signatures, their alleged standard signatures, i.e. specimen signatures, allegedly taken in the presence of PW-12 Kundan Singh, Pardhan of Gram Panchayat, have not been proved to be their signatures. The trial Court has observed that PW-12 Kundan Singh in his cross-examination stated that the specimen signatures of these persons were taken by the Inspector Vigilance in one go and thereafter he wrote on the paper-sheets, containing the specimen signatures, particulars of the persons and then submitted all of them to him for his signature and affixation of seal impression. Another reason given by the trial Court is that the witness stated that he was unable to say which specimen signatures were written by which witness as he was unable to read their particulars appearing on the top of the papers containing such specimen signatures, since he did not know English language in which such particulars were written by the Inspector. This view of the trial Court can also not be said to be perverse.