There were nine items of misappropriation originally imputed to the accused. All, but one, remained unproven and the guilt is now fixed on one of the inconsiderable items. Not that the littlest sum of public money can be taken on privately with impunity but that the perspective is coloured somewhat by the substantial failure of the prosecution to make out its case regarding all the major items. More B disquieting is the fact that e single surviving charge stands or falls on the veracity or unveracity of a solitary witness appreciated in the light of the conspectus of circumstances. What are those circumstances ? The BDO, charged as he is with serious responsibilities includiug guardant functions over the finances of the institution, has sworn that he checks the daily entries in the cash book with the relevant vouchers and affixes his signature, checks the total at the end of the day and c again affixes his signature. It is a pregnant piece of evidence that there is a specific entry on February 1, 1965 in the cash book that a payment of Rs. 50/- by way of salary to P.W. 7 has been made. The BDO has signed against the entry which means, in the ordinary course, he has verified the payment with reference to the relevant voucher. If this be a fact, the accused has probably paid the salary, made the necessary entry, shown it together with the relevant voucher to the D BDO, got his signature, totalled up the figures correctly and secured the BDO's signature over again. The exculpatory impact of this testimony is sufficient, according to ordinary canons of criminal jurisprudence to relieve the accused of culpability since reasonable doubt 1 generated. The sensible scepticism about guilt .vhich springs from the BDO's signature _against the relevant entry is heightened by the fact that the Finance Handbook referred to by the High Court in its E judgmen~ ·states that it is the duty of the drawing and disbursing officer to check each and every entry of receipt and expenditure recorded in the cash book and periodically to check physically the cash balances. The BDO, according to the High Court, has made evasive statements to suppress certain facts and 'spoken some apparent lies'. Startlingly enough, the Sessions Court has recorded P.W. 8, the BDO, as false and unbelievable in regard to certain other charges and gone to the F further extent of concluding that four entries · figuring as charges against the accused had been really made to the BDO himself 'who probably embezzled these amounts'. The consequential acquittal of the accused on these four charges has not been disturbed. In sum, therefore, the conclusion is irresistible that the BDO, the top officer in full financial control, had behaved irresponsibly or delinquently with regard to the funds of the block office, had been described as too mendacious to be depended and had convicted himself, of gross neglect of public duty in regard to the checking of the cash register, out of his own mouth. If we are to attach,--there is no reason for a Court not to do so-weight to the contemperaneous entry in the cash register coupled with the signature of the BDO the same day, M against his ipse dixit later, the accused is entitled to the benefit of reasonable doubt. There is likely to have been a separate voucher H evidencing thd payment of Rs. 50/- which is the subject of the defalcation because the BDO is not likely to have attested the entry of that payment without checking it up with the corresponding receipt.
