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27. The prosecution in order to prove the charge of impersonation and while impersonating attempting to commit extortion from the consumer of NDPL has also State vs. Prakash Joshi etc. FIR no.328/05 placed reliance upon the testimony of the victim PW7 Dharmender Chauhan. He is the victim in the present matter who was threatened with criminal prosecution. His testimony was impugned on behalf of the accused primarily on the ground that the said Dharmender Chauhan misused the electricity meter installed at his premises and despite that, he was never booked by the NDPL. The reason for NDPL for not taking action against him was his connivance with the NDPL against the accused herein. The PW7 Dharmender Chauhan, owner of the Dry Cleaner shop at Azadpur was present at his shop on 08.07.2005. It is his shop where the accused persons first of all went impersonating themselves as NDPL officials. On the issue of raid by accused and subsequently by police, PW7 deposed consistently and vividly described the role played by each of them. He deposed that accused Ram Nagina was the main culprit who had come along with other two associates inside his shop. The fourth accused i.e. accused Firoz was claimed to be the NDPL driver kept standing outside the shop while they were talking to him. He further elaborated his version on the aspect of impersonation and deposed that on his demand, the said accused persons produced their I­cards before checking his meter. On both the said crucial aspects i.e. impersonation by the accused persons as well as the role played by accused Ram Nagina and his two associates, no worthwhile contradiction has been brought forth in the entire cross examination. It is also quite apparent from his cross examination that none of the accused persons were known to PW7 prior to the date of State vs. Prakash Joshi etc. FIR no.328/05 incident, and therefore, there is no question of any enmity or false implication.

34. The last legal argument which was advanced on behalf of the accused was that no money was exchanged in the present matter, and hence, no offence u/s 384 IPC is made out. The accused persons have been charged for the offence of attempt to commit extortion. The ingredients of the offence u/s 383 IPC have been explained by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Dhananjay alias Dhananjay Kumar Singh Vs. State of Bihar and another (2007) 14 SCC 768. The relevant paras no.5 & 6 are re­produced as under:

4. Such inducement must be done dishonestly."

35. Admittedly, in the present case in hand, there was no payment of money by victim Dharmender Chauhan as the offence was stopped prior to reaching its conclusion by the members of the raiding party. The accused persons were apprehended at the spot itself State vs. Prakash Joshi etc. FIR no.328/05 while they were in the process of extracting money from the victim by impersonating themselves as NDPL employees and putting him into fear of criminal prosecution due to tampered electricity meter. It is also quite clear that accused had put PW7 in fear of criminal prosecution and he was about to handover the extortion amount when the place was raided. Therefore, the charge for the attempt to commit extortion has only been framed which duly stands proved through the versions given by the raiding party.

36. The accused Ram Nagina is further charged for the offence u/s 408 IPC for having committed breach of trust with respect to the entrusted property i.e. tampered meter. He is also charged u/s 468 IPC for the tampering of the electricity meter for the purposes of cheating. It has already come on the record through the versions given by PW8 and PW11 that accused Ram Nagina was already fired from his job by the contractor Technicom at the time of incident. Hence, there was no question of entrustment of the property by the employer to him. Further, no evidence has come on record for entrustment of any property. The second charge is concerning the tampering of the electricity meter which he had installed at the premises of victim PW7. No such evidence has come on record that the said meter was got replaced by the contractor of NDPL i.e. M/s Technicom Ltd. It has also not come on record that the said change was effected by M/s Technicom during the service of their employee Ram Nagina as alleged. The only evidence which has come on record is the tampering of the electricity meter and the State vs. Prakash Joshi etc. FIR no.328/05 accused persons attempting to commit extortion while inspecting it and pretending to be NDPL employees. In these circumstances, the charge for the offences u/s 408 & 468 IPC is not made out.