HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE(ACTING)

JUDGMENT AND ORDER(ORAL)

Both these Criminal Revision Petitions are heard and taken up together for disposal since they arise out of a common Judgment and Order involving common questions of law and facts.

2. The Criminal Revision Petition No.55 of 2021 is filed under Section 397(1) read with Section 401 of Cr.P.C. against the Judgment dated 28.09.2021 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, North Tripura, Dharmangar in Case No. Crl. Appeal No.07 of 2020, affirming the Judgment dated 03.03.2020, passed by the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Kanchanpur, North Tripura in PRC(WP)/02/2019, whereby and where under convicting the petitioner for committing offence punishable under Section 409 of IPC and sentencing him to suffer simple imprisonment for 3 years and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/- with default stipulation.

2.1. The Criminal Revision Petition No.58 of 2021 is filed under Section 397(1) read with Section 401 of Cr.P.C. against the Judgment dated 28.09.2021 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, North Tripura, Dharmangar in Case No. Crl. Appeal No.06 of 2020, affirming the Judgment dated 03.03.2020, passed by the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Kanchanpur, North Tripura in PRC(WP)/02/2019, whereby and where under convicting the petitioner for committing offence punishable under Section 409 of IPC and sentencing him to suffer simple imprisonment for 3 years and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/- with default stipulation.

3. The brief fact of the prosecution case is that Sri Arabinda Sarkar, in the capacity of ATM Executive of SIS Cash Services Private Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as SIS), lodged one 'Ejahar' with the Officer-in-charge, Kanchanpur P.S. stating inter alia that Sri Sanjoy Debnath and Sri Jahar Debbarma i.e. the petitioner herein were appointed as joint custodians of ATM vide I.D. no. TR13002U, under United Bank of India, Kanchanpur Branch, State Bank of India, Anandabazar Branch, and United Bank of India, Vanghmun Branch from 2013 onwards with proper KYC. On 08.06.2015 as per requisition, both the accused persons' collected cash of Rs.12,00,000/- (Rupees Twelve Lakhs only) from UBI of Kanchanpur Branch for loading cash in the above said ATM. After loading said cash in the ATM, both the accused persons confirmed the cash balance of Rs.25,27,300/- (Rupees Twenty Five Lakhs Twenty Seven Thousand and Three Hundred only) with the previous cash balance in the said ATM. From 17.06.2015 the dispensing of cash by the said ATM was stopped for unknown reasons and after communication with the accused persons they reported that there was link issue (V. Set problem) and as a result, ATM was not working. According to the informant, both the accused persons were reporting the above issue falsely. But as per the machine-generated report, it was found that both the accused persons went to the ATM on 13.06.2015 and confirmed the balance with E.O.D report which was not reported by them to UBI Kanchanpur Branch. Since the ATM vide no. TR 13002U was closed for link issue for consecutive seven days, there was suspicion from the side of the complainant. So, they made a call to Senior Manager of UBI Kanchanpur Branch on 24.06.2015 at 12.00 noon for physical inquiry of the cash. But when the Manager of the bank along with bank officials went for inquiry, it was found that one of the joint custodians namely accused Sri Jahar Debbarma was working at the machine. When the UBI bank personnel asked the accused Sri Jahar Debbarma for physical cash verification then he refused due to the absence of another custodian i.e. accused Sri Sanjoy Debnath. This incident was reported by UBI Branch personnel to the complainant who advised the Bank Officials to close the shutter of the said ATM and the informant traveled from Agartala to Kanchanpur for a joint-inquiry of ATM cash. On that date of 24.06.2015 at 6.30 pm complainant along with the Bank Officials of UBI Kanchanpur Branch went to the said ATM and asked the accu