JUDGMENT

Altamas Kabir, J.—

1. Leave granted in both the special leave petitions which are taken up for hearing and final disposal together.

2. The respondents were Directors of the Indore Premier Co-operative Bank Limited and were also members of the Loan Committee for sanctioning loans. One Harish Patil and Kanhaiyalal Yadav lodged a complaint with the Special Establishment of the Lokayukt, Madhya Pradesh at Indore, alleging that the respondents had sanctioned loans amounting to Rs.56,50,000/- in favour of 35 persons without verifying their eligibility to receive such loans or the end-use of such loans and had intentionally acted in an illegal manner to enable the said borrowers to avail of the loans. On receiving the complaint, the Special Establishment Lokayukt, Indore, registered Crime No.133/99 and after investigation filed a charge-sheet against the respondents under Sections 409, 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (‘IPC’ for short) together with Sections 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘P.C. Act’). The Trial Court on due consideration of the charge-sheet, found a prima facie case against the resp