JUDGMENT :

NARENDRA KUMAR VYAS, J.

1. The appellant by way of this appeal has challenged the judgment of conviction dated 03.09.2002 passed by the Special Judge and the First Additional Sessions Judge, Jagdalpur District Bastar (C.G.) in Special Case No. 3/99 whereby and whereunder, he has been convicted and sentenced as under:

2. In brief, the prosecution story is that the District Rural Development Agency under mandatory employment scheme for the year 1994-95 has granted approval to the Executive Engineer, Rural Development Department, Kondagaon for construction of stop dam at village Nayanar Tahsil Keshkal District Bastar with an estimated cost of construction Rs. 4,99,000=00. At the relevant time, H.R. Kanaskar was Executive Engineer, the present appellant was SDO and Ranjit Singh Tomar was Sub Engineer under whom the construction works were to be carried out. The administrative approval for carrying out the construction was granted by the Collector, District Rural Development Agency on 30.01.1995. Some works were started by the SDO and Sub-engineer at the construction site of Nayanar Stop Dam. Later, on the direction of the Project Officer, District Rural Development Agency the Superintendent Engineer, the Rural Engineering Service, Jagdalpur Circle inspected the site and submitted his report wherein it has been found that at the place of construction site no work was carried out. It has been assailed in the report that without actual progress of work the Executive Engineer H.R. Kanskar has submitted expenditure to the tune of Rs. 2,70,700=00 out of which 84,884=00 towards labour payment, Rs. 41,837=00 for foodgrain given to the labours and Rs. 1,39,000=00 towards construction materials.

3. It is case of the prosecution that as per the decision taken by the Rural Development Agency whenever there is negligible work, then Executive Engineer shall send proposal for cancellation of the site work, but, no such steps were taken and thus, he has deliberately not complied the direction issued by the agency. The present appellant, who was working as SDO had informed that due to sandy strata, no further construction work is possible. Therefore, the matter was sent to the Special Police Establishment Lokayukta Office Bastar for investigation. The Inspector R.S. Dhruv registered the Preliminary Enquiry number No. 27/97 and found that no stop dam was constructed in the spot. It has also been found that by using forged bills, forged muster rolls with criminal conspiracy and misusing their position labour payment to the tune of Rs. 1,26,468=83, Stationery expenditure to the tune 1,103=00, Cement 500 bags to the tune of Rs. 48,125=00, Signboard Rs. 1,384=50, Diesel expenditure 5,725=00, office cleaning Rs. 120=00, Guard 4097=35 total Rs.1,38,899=47 expenditure were done. It has also been alleged that thumb impression was taken but payment was made to other persons, causing loss to the Government. On the basis of this investigation, the Special Police Establishment Division, Bhopal registered the offence as Crime No. 11/98 under Section 13(1)(D) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120-B, 467, 468, 471 of the IPC and investigation was carried out.

4. During the investigation, documents related to Nayanar Stop Dam, muster roll and bills etc. were seized from the Accountant Purshottam Sharma and thumb impression was sent to the Thumb Impression Expert. Orders of posting of the a