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4. To prove the above charges, the prosecution has granted pardon to few of the accomplices and treated them as approvers and examined as prosecution witnesses. Besides independent witnesses, official witnesses and investigation officers were examined totally numbering 50. The prosecution has relied 177 exhibits. In defence, 9 exhibits are marked.
5. The trial Court has acquitted all the accused holding that the prosecution has failed to prove the conspiracy between the accused persons to do any illegal act. The decision to purchase colour TVs were consequent to the policy decision of the State, in which A1 had no role. The price of colour TV had been fixed pursuant to the Committees recommendation duly constituted for the said purpose. There is no evidence to prove that A2 and A3 had attained any pecuniary advantage. The approver PW-39, who claims that he developed acquaintance with A1 during his train journey and acted as a conduit to A1 in getting kickback for awarding colour TV supply contract to ECIL is not proved. Witness PW39 is not a trustworthy reliable witness. The contradictions between the prosecution witnesses namely PW8, PW-39, PW-40 and PW50 in respect of the location of the A1's residence and delivering cash to A1 by PW-39 renders the prosecution case unbelievable.
14. The law of evidence says that the statement of an accomplice is admissible in evidence but it requires strong corroboration. In this case, PW-8(M.J.Visweswaran) has not supported the case of the prosecution and had been treated as hostile witness. PW-40 (K.R.Balendran) has not deposed anything to lend credence to the deposition of PW-39, that he along with A2 and PW-39 (approver) went to the house of A1 to deliver the cash of Rs.5 lakhs. PW-44 (Anbuselvan) who admits the encashment of the cheques Exs.P39 to 41 issued by ECIL would depose that he had encashed that cheques at the request of PW-39 and gave the cash to him. Whereas PW-40 deposes that he encashed the cheque drawn in favour of M/s Indshri. The evidence of PW-44 (Anbuselvan, Prop. M/s Indshri) definitely have some bearing in the case of the prosecution because Indshri Exports has nothing to do with ECIL. It is not in the trade of electronic goods. It is neither an agent or distributor of ECIL. The communication [Ex.P68] which discloses the decision of ECIL to give commission of Rs.2,500/- to the dealers, who had successfully procured order to the tune of Rs.1.6 cores does not show M/s Indshri Exports as one of the dealer. Both Exs.P68 and P69, which are the relevant documents in this aspect mentions only M/s Bharani Enterprises; and M/s Arun Electronics. So, there is a grave suspicion that the amounts paid by ECIL to Indshri Exports may be for kickback. However, the prosecution has miserably failed to carry forward this chain. No material evidence to establish that the money paid by ECIL to Indshri Exports finally reached A1(T.M.Selvaganapathy) and that payment was towards the order placed to ECIL for procuring colour TVs. But for the transaction covering Exs.P39 to P41 cheques, there is no other evidence to show, in the process of procuring around 3750 colour TVs from 3 different companies viz., ECIL, Uptron and ET & T, A1 received kickback from ECIL.