J U D G M E N T

Aravind Kumar, J.

1. The appellant who has been arraigned as accused No.2 has challenged the concurrent conviction and sentence ordered under Section 420 Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’) read with Section 12(2) of the Passports Act, 1967 (herein after referred as ‘Passports Act’) and sentenced to one-year rigorous imprisonment for each of the offences which are to run concurrently.

2. The short and long of prosecution story is that appellant had wrongfully and illegally facilitated accused No. 1, for obtaining a second passport, who was already holding an Indian passport. It was further alleged that accused No.1 having deposited his passport with his employer at Dubai had applied for second passport in order to have better employment opportunities and said application was forwarded/ routed through the appellant. The prosecution alleged that second passport which was issued and dispatched to Accused No.1 had been returned undelivered to the Passport Office Trichy and was kept in safe custody and later it was delivered to the appellant by accused No.3 who was in charge of safe custody of the passports through accused No.4 who was working as a casual labourer in the