(1) The State is the appellant herein. This appeal is directed against the judgment, dated 10/10/2008, passed by the learned I Additional Sessions Judge, Medak at Sangareddy, in C.C.No.6 of 2004, whereby the respondents herein-Accused 1 to 7, were acquitted of the charges punishable under Sections 135 and 138 of the Indian Electricity Act, 2003 (for short "the Act").

(2) For the purpose of convenience and to avoid ambiguity in the discussion, the parties are referred to hereinafter as they arrayed in the C.C.

The case of the prosecution, in brief, is that basing on information of high-energy losses on Sowbhagya feeder emanating from 33/11 KV IDA Bollaram SS, thorough inspection of all services on the feeder were programmed in the month of April, 2003. In that context, the meter data was logged into CMRI to study the performance, load pattern, and tamper data in the meter. On review and study of the data available in the meter of A.1 company, certain tampers indicating the missing of voltage in Y-phase at times were registered in the meter. The billing meter of A.1 company with Meter No.APEO 1853 recorded 100 tamper events indicating the Y-phase potential missing from 02-10-