The main legal point established in the judgment is that charges of criminal conspiracy and subsequent acts of misappropriation forming the same transaction can be jointly tried.

1. Of this batch of appeals, the first four have been preferred by A-1, A-8, A-2 and A-3 respectively and the last one by A-5 to A-7. The persons charged and tried in the Lower Court were eight, of whom the 4th accused was acquitted. The rest are the appellants before us. All these appellants were jointly charged for criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B, Indian Penal Code (charge No. I). The 1st accused was further charged under Section 409, Indian Penal Code, for criminal breach of trust in respect of moneys belonging to the Guntur Cooperative Urban Bank and held by him in trust for the said Bank, aggregating to Rs. 25,340 between 15th February, 1929 and 14th February, 1930. He was charged for a similar offence to the extent of Rs. 24,607-4-9 between 15th February, 1930 and 14th February, 1931 (charges Nos. II-A and II-B). The rest of the appellants were charged individually for abetment of criminal breach of trust committed by the 1st accused in respect of various sums under Section 409, Indian Penal Code, read with Section 109 (charges Nos. III-A to III-D and III-F to III-L). All these offences are said to have been committed in pursuance of the aforesaid criminal conspiracy. Charge No. IV was framed against accused 1 and 2 for an offence under S; 471, Indian Penal Code, read with Section 467, for using certain valuable securities (forged documents) as genuine with fraudulent and dishonest motives. The 1st accused was also charged under Section 467, Indian Penal Code, read with Section 109, for having abetted the commission of the offence of forgery in respect of some documents in pursuance of the aforesaid conspiracy; (charge No. V-A). A-2, A-3 and A-5 to A-7 were charged individually with the offence of forgery under Section 467, Indian Penal Code, in respect of certain documents (charges Nos. V-B, V-C and V-E to V-G). Under Section 477, Indian Penal Code, A-5 and A-8 have been charged for having dishonestly and fraudulently attempted to destroy the Bank accounts and valuable securities and committed mischief in respect of the same by removing them from the Bank office building, treating them with sulphuric acid and throwing them into a well on 14th February, 1931 (charges Nos. VI-A and VI-B). A-1 to A-3 were charged for the abetment of this offence. The 1st accused was sentenced to transportation for life, and he and the other appellants were also sentenced to various terms of imprisonment ranging from five years to ten years. All the sentences were made to run concurrently.

2. This case is a unique one, known as the Guntur Co-operative Urban Bank Fraud Case. Both from the gravity of the offences with which the accused were charged and from the point of view that by these offences a public disaster was caused on account of the financial crash suffered by the Bank-, this case was bound to be one of considerable magnitude. It underwent a very elaborate trial which occupied 75 working days in the Sessions Court, and as many as 188 witnesses have been examined on the side of the prosecution, besides 49 witnesses examined as Court witnesses in the exercise of the discretion of the learned Sessions Judge for meeting the ends of justice. A large mass of documents and accounts have been exhibited. Voluminous is the evidence of Mr. R. Padmanabha Naidu, the Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies (P. W. 1). The record of his evidence alone has filled 140 printed pages of foolscap size and his evidence may be said to be a survey of the whole of the prosecution case regarding the various items of misappropriation. His evidence contains the history of this Bank and also the rules and bye-laws governing its administration. P. W. 187 is Mr. C. Venkataramanayya, C.I.D, Inspector of Police, He took up the investigation of this case under the orders of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police. Much interest was evinced by both these witnesses in bringing to light the various, offences committed by the accused in a tangled web o