The court established that conspiracy and cheating can be proven through circumstantial evidence and collective actions, with electronic records admissible without a Section 65B certificate if the original is presented.

COMMON JUDGMENT

Since these criminal appeals are arising out of the same crime, these cases are taken up for hearing together and disposed of by way of this common judgment.

2.Accused No.1, 3, 4 have filed these appeals challenging the following conviction and sentence imposed by the learned II Additional District Judge for C.B.I. Cases, Madurai, in C.C.No.6 of 2010 by virtue of judgment dated 15.03.2019 against them:

3.Brief facts of the Case:

Appellant in Crl.A.(MD).No.129 of 2019 was arrayed as A1 in C.C. No.6 of 2010. Appellant in Crl.A.(MD).No.164 of 2019 was arrayed as A3 in C.C.No.6 of 2010. Appellant in Crl.A.(MD).No.111 of 2019 is arrayed as A4 in the above C.C.No.6 of 2010. A1, A3 and one deceased G.Thimmaraya Perumal were the staff of Vedasandur sub Post Office, Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu. A4 was working as a postal agent of Mahila Pradhan Kshetriya Budgeti Yojana (MPKBY) in the said post office. During the months of July 2007 to November 2008, they entered into conspiracy to cheat the postal department and defraud the amount of Rs. 91,22,684/- of postal department. In furtherance of the conspiracy, they made bogus entry of deposit by showing enhanced amount in the RD Ledger in the computer server and further manipulated the entries in the passbooks of depositors to the extent of Rs.91,22,684/- and on the basis of the false entry, they submitted withdrawal slips with inflated amount and withdrew the amount of Rs.88,97,152/- out of Rs.91,22,684/- and thereby caused wrongful loss to the postal department and wrongful gain to themselves. Therefore, the CBI registered the case and conducted the investigation and filed the final Report against the appellants and the deceased accused Thimmaraya Perumal for the following various offences:

3.1.A2 died during the pendency of the trial, and the learned trial Judge summoned the accused and on their appearance, copies under Section 207 Cr.PC., were served to them and proper charges were framed and explained to the accused and they pleaded not guilty and they stood for trial.

3.2.The prosecution examined P.W.1 to P.W.64 and Exhibited Ex.P. 1 to Ex.P.461 and M.O.1 was marked. The learned trial Judge questioned the accused under Section 313 Cr.P.C., by putting the incriminating material available against them. They denied as false and A4 examined herself as DW.2 and DW1 also was examined on the side of the defence and they marked Ex.D.1 to Ex.D.3. The learned trial Judge considering all all evidence, convicted the appellants under the above said offences and sentenced them to undergo the above stated sentence of imprisonment by passing the impugned judgment in C.C.No.6 of 2010 dated 15.03.2019. Challenging the same, the appellants have filed these appeals.

4.The learned counsel for the appellants, namely, ThiruN.Sankar Ganesh, Thiru.Rupert J Barnabas, Thiru.R.John Sathyan, Senior Counsel for Mr.T.Balakrishnan submitted the following common argument

4.1. The Substratum of the prosecution case rests on the electronic evidence, namely, the Ex.P.323, Ex.P.330, Ex.P.333, Ex.P268, Ex.P269 and they were produced without certificate under Section 65(B)(4) of the Indian Evidence Act and therefore, they are inadmissible. But, the learned trial Judge placed reliance on the said documents and hence, the conviction passed on the basis of the said inadmissible documents is liable to be set aside.

4.2. There is no legal evidence to prove the conspiracy. The prosecution has not established any circumstnaces either to infer or presume the ch