Mangaluru : First additional district and sessions judge T P Ramalinge Gowda sentenced a bank employee to four years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on finding her guilty of cheating a retired school teacher, on Tuesday.

Public prosecutor Shekar Shetty said that Theresa D’Souza, the retired teacher, gave her pension amount for the year 2006-07 and 2008-09 to her relative Gracie Fernandez, and asked her to deposit it in her account in the nationalised bank’s branch in the city, where she was working. Gracie had failed to deposit the pension amount to Therasa’s account. When she had asked for an update of her passbook, a manual entry was made, and she had issued a fake receipt.

A few days later, when Theresa checked her account details, she realised that her account only had Rs 15,571 instead of Rs 5.4 lakh. When she went to Gracie ‘s house to inquire about the amount, she was threatened by the accused and her husband. Based on a complaint, the accused was arrested and a chargesheet was filed. In November 2016, the second additional senior civil judge and chief judicial magistrate had acquitted Gracie.

Allowing the appeal by the state government, she was sentenced to four years jail and fined Rs 12,000 for the offence punishable under various IPC sections . She was also sentenced to two years and imposed a fine of Rs 2000 for the offence punishable under Section 379 of IPC (punishment for theft) and one year and fine of Rs 1,000 for the offence under Section 465 of IPC (punishment for forgery). All the sentences will run concurrently. Out of the total fine amount, Rs 10,000 will be given to the retired teacher as compensation.