In Brief
Ram Lal, employed as a peon in United Commercial Bank, was assigned clerical duties due to staff shortage. He allegedly misappropriated deposits by receiving cash from account holders, making entries in their passbooks, but pocketing the money without crediting bank accounts. When depositors sought withdrawals, he created false credit entries to facilitate payments. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC sections for misappropriation and falsification of accounts. Holding that his extra-judicial confessional statements were voluntarily made and could sustain conviction, the Court partly allowed the appeal by reducing his sentence on the offence of misappropriation from five to three years.
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