1. The appellants herein while discharging their duty as Agricultural Officer and Demonstration Assistant respectively in the Agricultural Department of Puducherry Union Territory Government were entrusted to identify farmers near Karaikal affected in the heavy rain and flood during October November 2004 and to pay compensation. The appellants with common intention to cause wrongful loss to the Government and to dishonestly misappropriate the Government fund, fabricated documents such as claim applications in the name of fictitious persons or forged the applications in the name of existing persons without their knowledge and misappropriated a sum of Rs. 97,750/-. When the local public raised objections and complaint about the misappropriation committed by appellants, an enquiry was conducted by Mr. Jayasankar (PW-6) - the Additional Director, Agricultural Department and he submitted his report to the department on 13.07.2005. Based on the preliminary report of PW-6, the Additional Director of Agricultural Department, lodged a detailed complaint dated 10.03.2007 and the same was forwarded to the Central Bureau of Investigation which is marked as Ex.P.1, during the trial.

2. As per the complaint dated 10.03.2007 given by Mr. Thyagarajan PW-1, the Joint Director of Agricultural Department. The Government, vide its G.O. Rt. No. 138/Agri dated 10.03.2005 sanctioned 1.68 crores of rupees for payment of compensation to the farmers whose agricultural crops were damaged by heavy rain in October November 2004. Mr. D. Karunakaran (first Appellant) Agricultural Officer and Mr. T. Francis (second appellant) Demonstration Assistant, in charge, Keezhamanai Revenue District, jointly colluded and manipulated the original applications submitted by the affected farmers and made excessive claim over and above the entitlement and also made fake claims in the name of fictitious names or in the name of person who never applied thereby they jointly misappropriated a tune of Rs. 97,750/-. The complaint Ex.P.1 also enlisted 13 claimants, out of which, 5 were fictitious persons, four of them never applied and four applications were manipulated by the appellants so as to withdraw more money than the entitlement.

3. The respondent Police has registered the case and after completion of investigation, has filed final report. The Lieutenant Governor who is the person competent to grant sanction to prosecute the appellants has given sanction and the same is marked as Ex.P.2 through PW-2 Mr. Manickasamy.

4. The prosecution, to establish its case had examined PWs. 1 to PW-14 and marked Exhibits P.1 to P.45. The trial Court, after considering the evidence has convicted the accused for offences under Sections 465 r/w 34 I.P.C. 468 r/w 34 I.P.C. and Section 13(1)(c) r/w 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced both the accused to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of six months and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- each in default to undergo simple imprisonment for 15 days each for offence under Section 465 r/w 34 I.P.C. to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of one year and to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/- each in default to undergo simple imprisonment for 30 days each for the offence under Section 468 r/w 34 I.P.C. and to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of one year each and to pay a fine of Rs. 3,000/- each in default to undergo simple imprisonment for 30 days each for the offence under Section 13(1)(c) r/w 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

5. The learned counsel for the appellants submitted that as per the prosecution case, out of 13 beneficiaries, 5 are fictitious persons and no such persons available in the given address. In four applications, it is alleged that excessive claim was made by the appellants than the entitlement and rest of the claim applications which were not made by the real applicants but forged by the appellants themselves with excessive claim. The fraud came to light on the petition complaint from pu