The main legal point established in the judgment is that the accused's actions, including fraudulent preparation of vouchers and misuse of official position for personal gain, constituted offenses under the relevant sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

Common Judgment The accused, who was convicted for offences punishable under section 420 IPC (3 counts), under section 477-A IPC (3 counts) and under section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) (ii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (3 counts) and was sentenced to undergo three years rigorous imprisonment for each of the charges under the aforesaid penal provisions in respect of each of the cases for a period of three years and to pay a fine of Rs.500/= to each of the offences in default to undergo three months rigorous imprisonment with an order to run the entire substantive sentence concurrently, has preferred the present appeal.

2. This court was pleased to take up the appeal for disposal on 22. 2007. Recording the submission made by the learned Senior Counsel Mr.A.Natarajan, appearing on behalf of the appellant that he had not proposed to argue on the question of conviction recorded by the Trial Court, but, would argue only on modification of the sentence, this court, having heard the submission made on either side with respect to the quantum of sentence alone, has chosen to reduce the sentence from three years to one year for each of the offences under the respective cases. Of course, this court was pleased to confirm the imposition of fine by the Trial Court.

3. The appellant carried the matter to the Honourable Supreme Court. The Honourable Supreme Court, having granted Special Leave, remitted the matter to this court for fresh consideration on merits, reminding the appellant to take the risk of imposition of the term of imprisonment for more than one year while arguing the case on merit.

4. Three charges have been framed in each of the cases. As far as C.C.No.21 of 1998 and 22 of 1998 are concerned, the occurrence is said to have taken place on 5. 1993 and as far as C.C.No.23 of 1998 is concerned, the occurrence is said to have taken place on 25. 1993. The first set of charge in each of the case would read that the accused while working as Deputy Manager (Personal) State Bank of India, City Branch at Coimbatore fraudulently and dishonestly prepared a debit voucher for Rs.30,000/=, Rs.33,000/= and Rs.33,000/= respectively from Public Provident Fund Account No.331 of Thiru.V.R.Rubani, Public Provident Fund Account No.332 of Thiru.M.Ramasamy and Public Provident Fund Account No.1/1974 of Gothawari Bai and induced the State Bank of India Coimbatore to deliver the said sum to the accused himself and thereby, he committed an offence punishable under section 420 IPC. The second set of charge in all the three cases is that the accused wilfully and also with an intention to defraud the State Bank of India, falsified the accounts of the bank in respect of the aforesaid transaction and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 477A IPC in each of the cases. The third set of charge is that the accused by corrupt and illegal means of abusing his position as Public Servant, obtained for himself pecuniary advantage to the extent of the afore-referred amount and thereby he committed the offence punishable under section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d)(ii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 in each of the cases.

5. The Trial Court has chosen to frame charges separately and take up the cases together as common evidence was sufficient to dispose of all the three criminal cases. Based on the common judgment pronounced by the Trial Court, three separate appeals have been preferred by the very same accused and therefore, all the three appeals have been taken up for common disposal by this court.

6. The sum and substance of the material evidence adduced before the Trial Court is as follows:-

a) Thiru.S.Subramaniam, PW1 was working as Manager of State Bank of India, City Branch, Coimbatore. The accused, who was serving as Accountant in the City Branch, was in charge of Public Provident Fund (PPF) Accounts. The PPF accounts were directly dealt with by the accused during the period from June 1990 to June 1993. In his