Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Madurai Bench acquits railway employee

MADURAI: The Madras High Court Bench here has reversed the sentence awarded to a former employee of the Golden Rock Railway Workshop, Tiruchi, for allegedly withdrawing money from his colleagues’ Provident Fund accounts by forging their signatures.

Allowing a criminal appeal filed by him, Justice A.C. Arumugaperumal Adityan said the failure of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths to obtain specimen signatures of the victims either before a judicial magistrate or after obtaining necessary orders from the latter had proved fatal for the prosecution’s case.

A Special Court for CBI cases here had convicted T. Selvaraj, an electrical millwright, on July 10, 1998. He was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for eight years under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption (PCA) Act, 1988.

However, he was ordered to be incarcerated only for one year, the maximum punishment awarded under the PCA Act, as the trial court had held that the sentences would run concurrently and not consecutively. Immediately, the convict filed the present appeal, which took nearly a decade to be disposed of.

Mr. Justice Adityan said the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Bureau had failed to comply with Section 3(11) (A) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Section states that a First Class Magistrate could pass orders for collecting specimen signatures, or handwriting, for investigation.

The judge recalled that the Supreme Court, in Mohammed Aman’s case (1997) had said: “It is true that the police are competent to take fingerprints of the accused. But, to dispel any suspicion as to its bona fides or to eliminate the possibility of fabrication of evidence, it is eminently desirable that they are taken before, or under the order of, a magistrate.”

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