M.S. Ramachandra Rao, J.

1. These appeals are filed by the accused, who have been found guilty of the charge under Section 5 of the A.P. Protection of Depositors of Financial Establishments Act, 1999 (for short 'the Act') by the Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Hyderabad in C.C. Nos. 77 of 2003 and batch, by separate judgments. Heard Sri J.C. Francis and Sri A. Prabhakara Rao, learned counsel for appellants, learned Public Prosecutor for the State of Telangana and Sri Nazir Ahmed Khan, learned counsel for de facto-complainants/respondents in the appeals.

2. The facts in all these cases are similar and common questions of law arise for consideration in these cases. Therefore, all these appeals are being disposed of by this common judgment.

3. By way of illustration, the facts in Criminal Appeal No. 1581 of 2005 arising out of C.C. No. 24 of 2004 on the file of the above Court are set out hereunder.

4. A-1 and A-2 are brothers. A-3 is wife of A-1, A-5 is son-in-law of A-1, A-4 is elder brother of A-5, A-4 and A-5 are residents of Sikh Village, Secunderabad. A-6 is son of A-1 and A-3.

5. The case of prosecution is that accused were running a finance company styled as Awad Agro Farms Private Limited with branches and having a registered office at premises bearing No. 16-3-994/B/23, opposite to Dawn High School, near Officers Mess, Malakpet, Hyderabad, and they had cheated the general public, collected huge deposits by promising high monthly dividends to them and later closed down their office. It is alleged that the accused collected deposits worth nearly Rs. 6.4 crores and dishonestly cheated the public investors; that the accused being closely related colluded with each other and collected deposits from the public with promise of high rates of Halal Munafa to be paid every month; that in order to attract common gullible and middle income groups of public, the accused introduced novel schemes such as Rice Scheme, Sheep and Goat Farm, Mineral Water unit, Housing Project scheme and Investment Scheme, and they collected deposits from the public with lucrative monthly dividend of Rs. 500/- on each investment of Rs. 10,000/- repayable after 18 months. It is alleged that the dividend was referred to as Halal and it grows to Rs. 9,000/- within 18 months, (which was 90% of the investment); that in the normal business in such period, no company pays such high remunerative short term dividends to public. It was contended that the purpose of introducing this scheme was only to collect deposits from public and cheat them by not paying the assured amounts of dividend and deposits to the investors.

6. It is alleged that P.W.1 is one of such investors who deposited Rs. 10,000/- at Malakpet branch of the above company and received a receipt of the amount on a bond paper. On 11-03-1999 he came to know that the above company is a fraud and was cheating the investors; that on that day he went to ask for the deposit; similarly other persons also came and made a demand to return the deposits, but the accused failed to convince them.

7. Therefore, on 16-04-1999 P.W.1 went to P.S., Dabeerpura and lodged a written complaint against the said company stating that it is a fraud and he has invested Rs.10,000/-.

8. This complaint was registered at P.S. Dabeerpura as Cr. No. 33 of 1999 under Section 406, 402 IPC. It was subsequently transferred to C.C.S., Hyderabad and investigation was entrusted to P.W.4. During the course of investigation, he examined several witnesses and recorded their statements. The accused were then arrested and a confession statement of A-1 was recorded allegedly which proved that A-1 invested the deposits collected from public in land, which he purchased under an agreement; and the said land was located at Shankerpalli, for which he paid Rs. 6 Lakhs as advance apart from Rs. 45 Lakhs to one Prasana Chand Bhandari, r/o. Himayathnagar. It is alleged that the said land is Ac. 19.37 gts and the original land papers were with the said Bhandar