1. These appeals are directed against appellants' conviction for various offences and sentences imposed upon them for those offences by the learned 2nd Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Nagpur, in Criminal Case No.375 of 2002.

2. In the year 1999, a scandal of bogus degrees, mark-sheets and unwarranted increase of marks in revaluation at various examinations conducted by the Nagpur University surfaced. The University authorities reported the matter to police, whereupon Crime No.346 of 1999 was registered on 22nd June, 1999 on the complaint of Shri Prakash Mistry. Two other crimes were also reported. In course of investigation of these crimes, some more matters surfaced. On 21-6-1999, on a report by Shri Prakash Mistry, Crime No.346 of 1999 was registered against some students of the University. Eventually, in Crime No.348 of 1999, Shri Prakash Mistry was himself arrested by the police. Investigation into the crimes was conducted by PI Sayyad and after him by PSI Anil Lokhande. Originally one chargesheet was filed bearing Regular Criminal Case No.387 of 1999 and after separate trials were ordered, separate supplementary chargesheets for various offences came to be filed against various offenders.

3. Facts, which led to prosecution and conviction of the appellants are as under:

Appellant Anil Gupta in Criminal Appeal No.439 of 2007, who was accused No.1 before the Court, was a student, who had appeared at Part III of BE Examination in Summer-1998. He failed in some of the subjects at the said examination. The Nagpur University permitted revaluation of answer books in terms of Ordinance No.159 at the instance of such failed candidates. Therefore, accused No.1 Anil Gupta applied for revaluation of his papers of Theory of Structures (TOS)-1 and Limit State Design (LSD), by paying requisite fees.

4. Procedure for conduct of examinations is prescribed in Ordinance No.9 issued by the Nagpur University. It provides, among other things, from Clause 57 onwards, for appointing tabulators, scrutineers, etc., and their respective roles. This ordinance did not provide for revaluation, which facility was introduced by Ordinance No.159. Ordinance No.159 providing for revaluation merely gives sketchy procedure about revaluation. It does not lay down the procedure to be followed internally by the University administration. Therefore, it may be taken that the provisions of Ordinance No.9 would apply mutatis mutandis to revaluation as well.

5. The practice, which was followed by the University officials for such revaluation has been deposed to by PW 3 Narayan Ghatole, an employee of the University in the Revaluation Section, and PW 1 Gangaram Meshram, the Assistant Registrar (Revaluation) of the University. According to them, after a candidate applied for revaluation after paying the prescribed fee, an entry used to be taken in the Revaluation Tabulation Register (hereinafter referred to as .the RTR. for the sake or brevity). The RTR contains the following columns:

I) Sr.No. VIII) Original Marks

II) Roll No. IX) Marks of 1st examiner in revaluation

III) Date and amount X) Marks of 2nd examiner in revaluation

IV) Name of candidates XI) Average marks in both

V) Case No./Code No. XII) Result/change or no change

VI) Subject paper XIII) % increase or decrease

VII) Maximum marks XIV) Signature of scrutineer

XV) Remarks

The Clerks in the Revaluation Section used to fill up column nos.(I) to (IV) and (VI) to (VIII) on the basis of the material which they already had. Requisition for relevant answer books used to be sent to the godown. After the answer books were received, the portion of the answer book containing roll number of the candidate and marks obtained by him in the original valuation used to be masked. A code number used to be printed on the answer book by using a numbering machine.

6. According to Shri Ghatole, earlier the University used to maintain a register, where roll number of the candidate and the code number allotted t