GAJAWADA MANIKYAM Vs. STATE OF TELANGANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Criminal Appeal No.200 of 2008 is preferred by A2 who was the then Upper Divisional Clerk and Criminal Appeal No.202 of 2008 is preferred by A1, who was the then Junior Accounts Officer. Both were working in the office of Divisional Electrical Engineer, Operations and Constructions Division, Kamareddy. Both the appellants/A1 and A2 were convicted for the offence under Ss. 7 and also under Sec. 13 (1) (d) punishable under Sec. 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for short "the Act of 1988") and sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for a period of one year under each count vide judgment in Calendar Case No.29 of 2004, dtd. 12/2/2008 passed by the Principal Special Judge for SPE and ACB Cases, City Civil Court, Hyderabad. Aggrieved by the same, the present appeals are filed.

(2.) Briefly stated, the case of the prosecution is that the defacto complainant/L.W.1 (died prior to commencement of trial) approached the ACB authorities and lodged a complaint Ex.P10 alleging that he worked as Additional Assistant Engineer and was suspended on 27/9/1997 and was later reinstated. For regularization of period of his service and for processing his pension papers, the DEE needed Last Pay Certificate and Service Book from the Divisional Office, Kamareddy. An application was filed for issuance of the Last Pay Certificate and sending Service Book to Armoor Division where he retired. The DEE directed the appellant herein to verify the records and put up the office note for issuing the Last Pay Certificate. Both the appellants verified and put up a note to DE for issuance of the said certificate, which was approved by the DEE on 3/6/2003.

(3.) Both the appellants allegedly demanded an amount of Rs.20,000.00 for sending the file for the purpose of processing on the very same day i.e., 3/6/2003. On request, the bribe amount was reduced to Rs.6,000.00. The complainant again approached the appellants on 16/6/2003 and 17/6/2003 and pleaded to send the file for processing and informed them that he would pay the bribe later. Again on 2/7/2003 also request was made to the appellants, but unless the bribe was paid, the appellants refused to send the file.