The central legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of intentional deception and injury for the offense of cheating, as well as the need for an illegal agreement or connivance for the offense of criminal conspiracy.

JUDGMENT :

Heard learned counsel for the parties.

2. Since all these criminal revision applications arise out of common judgment and are interconnected; as such same are heard together and disposed of by this common judgment.

3. These revision applications are directed against the common judgment dated 20.3.2006 passed by learned 7th AJC-cum-Special Judge, C.B.I., Ranchi in Criminal Appeal No.148/05 and in Criminal Appeal No. 152/2005; whereby the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 8.8.2005 passed by the learned SDJM-cum-Special Judicial Magistrate, C.B.I., Ranchi in R.C. Case No.5(S)/89(R), Tr. No.9/2005; whereby the petitioners were convicted u/s 120B, 420, 468, 471 of the IPC and were sentenced to undergo R.I. for two years each with fine of Rs.2,000/- each and in case of default, to further undergo S.I. for three months; has been affirmed and the appeal filed by the petitioners was dismissed.

4. At the outset it is relevant to mention here that vide order dated 29.10.2018, this application was dismissed as abated as against the petitioner No.1-Ranjit Kumar Ghosh in criminal revision No.442 of 2006.

5. The prosecution case in short is that the above named petitioners while posted at Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro during October, 1986 to October, 1988 entered into a criminal conspiracy to cheat the Management of Bokaro Steel Plant by submitting false T.A. advance application bearing forged signature of controlling officers and in pursuance of said criminal conspiracy, they withdrew advance T.A. of Rs.3,21,500/- for which they were otherwise not entitled. It is further alleged that all the applications of the accused persons were directly handed over to account section where Sumeru Singh and N. Mishra passed the advance and Md. Salauddin, S.K. Roy, Ajay Kumar and T. Chkaraborty authorized the payment.

On the basis of credible information, the case was instituted by the informant Ashok Kumar Saha, Inspector of Police, CBI/S.P.E, Ranchi on his self-written report and investigation was taken up. After due investigation charge sheet has been submitted against 19 accused persons, cognizance of the offence has been taken against them on 30.5.1990. Rest six accused persons, namely, Md. Salauddin, Sri Swapan Kumar Roy, Sri Ajay Kumar, Sri T. Chakraborty, Sri Samaru Singh and Sri Nageshwar Mishra have not been sent up for trial and final form has been submitted against them and they have been discharged.

Out of 19 accused persons seven persons namely, T.K. Goswami, G.P. Singh, G.Y. Giri, P.M. Gangadharan, S.K. Paul, Nar Bahadur and L.D. Ram remained absent and they never appeared, as such their case was separated and 12 accused persons/above named petitioners faced trial. Charges were read over and explained to the accused persons to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

6. Mr. V.P Singh, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner (in Cr. Rev. No.486/06) submits that though 25 persons were named accused in the F.I.R., however accused No.5-Sumeru Singh, accused No.6-Nageshwar Mishra who passed the T.A. advances and accused No.1-Md. Salauddin, accused No.2-Swapan Kumar Roy, accused No.3-Ajay Kumar and accused No.4-Sri T. Chakraborty who authorized the payments were not charge-sheeted. Mr. Singh specifically submits that all non-charge sheeted persons were from the Accounts Department. This clearly goes to show that the fraud/conspiracy/cheating is not proved as the allegation is with regard to withdrawal of forged T.A. bills.

Mr. Singh further submits that there was a long delay in institution of this case and no plausible explanation has been submitted for the said delay and the Investigating Officer (P.W.10) in his deposition admitted that there was no explanation for delay in lodging the F.I.R. Further this case has not been instituted by Management of Bokaro Steel Plant.

Learned senior counsel further submits that there was specific rule of the Bokaro Steel Plant for its employees with regard to