( 1 ) THESE appeals are succeeding on two legal grounds concerning the validity of the trial at which the Appellants were convicted and it is therefore hardly necessary to state any facts other than those which bear on those grounds. The trial was held under the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance (29 of 1943 ). It appears that after the Ordinance had been promulgated, it was amended eleven times and adapted twice, with the undetected result that the thread of continuity, at least as regards the constitution of the Tribunal by which the Appellants were being tried, had snapped at a vital point. It was also overlooked that while the trial was proceeding under a special law, the new Constitution of India had come into force with its declarations of fundamental rights.

( 2 ) THESE are five appeals before us. The appellant in Appeal No. 95 is Major J. Phillips who was Accused No. 1 in the ease and had been, at all material times, the Controller of Telegraphs Stores, Alipore. The appellant in Appeal No. 94 is Captain A. J, Rodrigues who was accused No. 2 and had been the Deputy Assistant Engineer, Purchase Section, The appellant in Appeal No. 93 is Jagat Bhusan Biswas who was Accused No. 4 and had been the Stock-Holder, Wire Godown. The appellant in Appeal No. 92 is Edward Ezra who was accused No. 6 and had supplied large quantities of copper strips and Mclntyre sleeves to tne Telegraph Stores. Appeal No. 96 is by Nanda Lal Dey, accused No, 7, who also had been a supplier of stores and had supplied, besides copper strips and Mclntyre sleeves, large quantities of bolts and nuts.

( 3 ) ALONG with the appellants, two other persons were placed on their trial as accused Nos. 3 and 5. Accused No. 3 was one Dasarathi Mukherjee who had been the Sub-store-Keeper of the Construction Branch, but as he died during the course of the trial, the prosecution as against him abated. Accused No. 5 was one Dhruba Chandra Banerjee who had been the Purchase Clerk in the Telegraph Storeyard at all relevant times. He turned approver and gave evidence as a prosecution witness.

( 4 ) AS our decision is not going to turn on the merits, I shall state the prosecution case and the defence only in the barest outline. Tne case for the prosecution is that as Controller 9f Telegraph Stores, Phillips had the duty of procuring stocks of all varieties of Telegraph Stores and supply them on demand to the Branch Stores, Depots and Divisions throughout India. His functions and the manner in which he was to discharge them were both defined by rules. The various Depots, Divisions and" Branch Stores would send him demands for their requirements or rather estimates thereof in writing and on receipt of those requisitions he would have first to prepare an amalgamated list of the year's requirements and then proceed to procure them either from the Telegraph Workshops or througn the Indian Stores Department. He would procure such articles from the workshops as the workshops could manufacture and supply, but for ether articles, he would have to place indents on the Indian Stores Department which would either buy them from the market by means of regular contracts with suppliers or procure them from other sources. Phillips himself had no authority to make direct purchases except when on actual demand for some item of stores could not be met out of the existing stock in the godown, but even in such cases he could make purchases only upto a limit of Rs. 500. 00 for a single item and, on emergent occasions, upto a limit of Rs. 1000. 00. In making such purchases, he would have to invite openly tenders from firms and stockists of repute out of a list of approved concerns maintained in his office, consider the tenders received along with the recommendation of the officer-in-charge of the Purchase Section and then make a choice of the lowest tender consistent with the required quality. His procurements had thus to be limited to the Departmental demands