of cutting and the contractor had already been paid Rs. 5.72 lakhs less security deposit; that he, therefore countersigned the bill dated December 30, 1966 and passed it on to M.E. for approval of the extra quantity of cutting; that M.E. approved on the same date and the bills was sent to Engineering Bills for scrutiny by the Accountant in respect of sanctions, work order terms etc; that he also particularly instructed that the bill should be shown to K. section Joshi before the pay order was issued since normally the bill should have gone to him for counter signature; that the Accountant carried out his instructions; that the counter signature did not denote final passing of a bill but only that it might be proceeded further and subjected to all the necessary administrative and financial checks before payment; that all the bills for the work had been certified by the Assistant Engineer incharge who was fully familiar with work and the previous bills had been counter 891 signed by colleagues of status equal to him; that he had no reasons to suspect any malpractice or mistakes and also there was no dispute with contractor; that he had exercise the normal technical checks which were the functions denoted by counter signature as per the prevailing practice and that countersignature did not imply correctness of the quantities certified by the Assistant Engineer (who alone was responsible for the correctness) in either the current or previous bills.