The judgment established that conspiracy requires evidence of a common intention among co-conspirators, and actions taken in furtherance of that intention can implicate all involved.

HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MUKTA GUPTA

1. Gist of prosecution case which led to the conviction of the appellants initiated on the complaint dated 5th February, 2001 by M.E. Haque, Secretary & Vigilance Officer (PW-24) is that officials of CWC deviated from the normal procedure and issued cheques in the name of individuals which they were not supposed to and failed to do pre-audit of bills. The complaint was based on special audit which was conducted by an internal division of Controller of Accounts on the basis of a pseudonymous complaint received by the Controller of Accounts, Ministry of Water Resources alleging that fraudulent payments have been made to officials by the accounts office, DDO/CWC. One of the main irregularities was wrong drawl of pay and allowances to the tune of 23,67,951/- during July, 1999 to March, 2000.

2. The alleged fraudulent transactions can be categorized into three categories:

“i) Transactions where cheques issued earlier in the names of individuals were cancelled and fresh consolidated cheques were issued by the pay & Accounting Officer (A-17) in the name of DDO-I (A-2) without following the procedure and the money withdrawn through these cheques was misappropriated. - As per the procedure, once a cheque issued in the name of an individual is cancelled, it could be validated/ made afresh in the name /category of the earlier beneficiary and not in the name/ category of different person/category. However in the present case fresh cheques were made in the name of different persons and in some cases in the name of DDO for the purpose of wrongful withdrawal and misappropriation of government funds.

ii) Transactions where cheques were issued on the basis of false and forged bills. - There are transactions where cheques have been issued against the bills (LTC, medical, etc.) claimed by Shiv Sagar Naik (A-7), Jeet Ram Sharma (A-9), B.M. Ghosh (A-10) and Hayat Singh (A-15) which are forged, fabricated and/or not showing the correct designation of the person claiming them and are not supported by sanction order. The concerned official i.e. Natha Ram Suman (A-16), Chandreshwar Manjhi (A-2) have passed these bills by intentionally ignoring the above and thus facilitating wrongful withdrawal of money.

iii) Transactions where cheques were issued without any bill. - There are the transaction where the cheques have been fraudulently issued in the name of different officials and other private persons in the absence of any bill or authorization for the same. Consequentially, in order to prevent the fraud from being detected, there are no entries made in the relevant records.”

3. Before dealing with theevidence on record and rival contentions raised in the appeals separately it would be relevant to decide legal issues which are common to most of the appeals.

4. CONSPIRACY

4.1. Learned counsels for the appellants challenging their conviction submit that they performed their duties as assigned to them in the ordinary course of nature. In case during the procedure followed one or two appellants over-stepped their duties or misappropriated the amount, all the appellants cannot be held liable for the offences they are convicted for with the aid of Section 120B IPC. The Court is required to see whether there is legal evidence to show that there was meeting of minds between the accused and the accused acted in furtherance of the common object of the conspiracy. Learned counsel for the CBI rebutting the contention submits that once the prosecution is able to establish prima facie facts which lead to an inference that the appellants acted with a common object then by virtue of Section 10 of the Indian Evidence Act, the acts of one would be attributable to others who shared the common object.

4.2. Supreme Court in the decision reported as (1999) 5 SCC 253 State v. Nalini while discussing the concept of conspiracy observed in sub para 7 of para 583:

“7. A charge of conspiracy may prejudice the accused because it forces them into a joint trial