court and the 1st accused was absconding. Therefore, the case against the 1st accused was split up and only the revision petitioner/2nd accused faced trial. All the cases were tried jointly and evidence was recorded in C.C. No. 647 of 2002. During the trial, the power of attorney holder of the complainant was examined as PW1 and marked Exts.P1 to P30. The trial court on appreciation of the evidence adduced, held the revision petitioner/2nd accused guilty of the offence punishable under Section 138 of the NI Act and thus convicted and sentenced him to undergo simple imprisonment and to pay compensation and in default, the accused was directed to undergo simple imprisonment for a further period. Aggrieved by the conviction and sentence, the revision petitioner has filed criminal appeals as Crl.Appeal Nos.430 of 2005, 432 of 2005, 433 of 2005 and 429 of 2005 before the Additional Sessions Court (Adhoc-I), Ernakulam. Appellate Court as per the common judgment dated 15.02.2006 confirmed the conviction but modified the sentence by reducing the substantive sentence till rising of the court and increasing the compensation amount, with a default sentence.
