Gajendragadkar, J. - (1.) ARE the appellants S. Gangoli and P. R. Chaudhri (hereafter called appellants 1 and 2 respectively) public servants under s. 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 (Act II of 1947) (hereinafter called the Act) ? That is the short question which arises for our decision in the present appeal. That question arises in this way.
(2.) CHAUDHRI had been posted as Assistant Permanent Way Inspector, Sultanpur, East Indian Railway, in March, 1948, in the Lucknow E.I.R. Division. Gangoli was posted as Assistant Pay Clerk in the Lucknow E.I.R. Division during the same period. The case against the appellants was that they had committed an offence under s. 120B of the Indian Penal Code and s. 5(2) read with Sections 5(1)(c) and 5(1)(d) of the Act. It appears that in accordance with the Pay Commission's Report a sum of Rs. 16,685 was entrusted to appellant No. 2 by the railway department to be disbursed among Class IV staff working under appellant No. 1. This payment had to be made in the presence of, and was to be attested by, appellant No. 1. According to the prosecution both the appellants had entered into a criminal conspiracy to misappropriate a part of the said government amount entrusted to appellant No. 2 by paying to the respective members of Class IV staff lesser amounts than those to which they were entitled and by making entries in the pay -sheets which purported to show that the due amounts had been paid to them. In accordance with this conspiracy payment was made on March 11, 1948, in a running train between Faizabad and Chilbila and the entries in the pay -sheets show that the whole of the amount of Rs. 16,591 had been paid to 216 employees. The entries also show that the payment had been made by appellant No. 2 and the same had been attested by appellant No. 1. In fact the whole amount had not been disbursed to the employees who in all were paid Rs. 1,555 less. In this manner the two appellants had misappropriated the sum of about Rs. 1,555 and had falsified the pay -sheets in pursuance of their conspiracy. Within a few days of the said payment the employees became suspicious because they learnt that persons recruited on the same day had been paid larger amounts as arrears. Thereupon they approached the higher officers and made a complaint to them. They were advised to present their grievance in writing and as a result some of the employees did present applications in writing complaining that they had not received the due payment of their arrears. There representations led to an enquiry and Mr. Dalip Singh in fact recorded some of the statements on April 6 and 7, 1948. The prosecution alleges that this development alarmed appellant No. 1 and he tried to hush up the matter by calling all the men together and paying them the amounts which had been previously wrongfully deducted from their arrears. It is the prosecution case that on this day three documents were executed, Exs. 5, 10 and 11, which would clearly show that the appellants had committed the offences charged against them.
(3.) BOTH the appellants denied the charges. They pleaded that they had not entered into any conspiracy and it was their suggestion that they had been falsely implicated in the present case. Appellant No. 1 pleaded that the case against him had been started, and false evidence had been secured by H. N. Das with the aid of Shambu because relations between him and Das were not friendly. Appellant No. 2 pleaded that he had been falsely implicated because, contrary to the suggestion of the police, he had refused to implicate appellant No. 1. According to them the evidence adduced by the prosecution was interested and false, and the documents produced by it were either fabricated or irrelevant.;