K K HARIHALOO Vs. CBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Writ petition under Article 226 read with Section 482 Cr.P.C. for quashing of criminal proceedings pending before ld. Special Judge, CBI. The petitioner has been charged under Section 120-B IPC and Section 13 (2) read with Section 13(1) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act allegedly for entering into a criminal conspiracy with five other co-accused persons and causing of loss of Rs. 20 lacs approx. to MES, Delhi by abusing his official position as a public servant.

(2.) The facts of the case in brief are that on 09.11.87 a project for 860 bedded Referral & Research Hospital was sanctioned by Govt. of India for Defence Personnel for a cost of Rs. 52.92 crores including a laundry plant. In furtherance of this, Engineer-in-chief (E-in-C) prepared an action plan and in 1990 a notice inviting tenders for providing a laundry plant at an estimated cost of R.42 lacs was advertised in the newspapers. In April 1993, the petitioner was associated in the project as SO-II in MES, Delhi Zone. The allegations against the petitioner are that he and 4 other officials of MES, Delhi entered into a criminal conspiracy with M/s KB Contractors with an intention to cheat the Govt. of India and in pursuance of said criminal conspiracy, the contract for supply, installation and commissioning of a mechanized laundry plant was dishonestly awarded to M/s KB Contractors at highly exorbitant price and caused a loss of Rs. 20 lacs approx to MES, Delhi. According to the charge sheet, the sanction for installation of new laundry plant was given on 24.11.1993 and the petitioner vide his reference no. 43087/Gen./49/E-4 made enquiries from M/s Stefab India and on 07.09.1994 the petitioner submitted a draft tender schedule A for the proposed laundry plant which was based on the data supplied to him by M/s Stefab India. It is alleged that the petitioner included the specifications of Stefab Equipments in the said tender schedule and also recommended that the equipment to be installed should be either of Stefab or Snow White make.

(3.) It is alleged that in the aforesaid tender, vital equipments necessary for setting up the laundry plant were deliberately omitted by the accused persons to avoid the attention of interested parties. Further, no specifications of the boiler and accessories required with the boiler were given in the floated tender in order to rule out the participation of interested parties in the bidding process. The bids which were received were opened on 26.09.94. It has been further alleged that the petitioner gave his comments on the three technical bids that were received and dishonestly made misleading remarks on the bids of the two companies other than M/s KB Contractors and informed them that their cases were being considered separately, whereas it was not the case. It has been alleged that the petitioner also wrongly noted that the other two firms had not submitted the bids as required in the tender and the equipment offered by them was of a different make than the required make and recommended the technical bid of M/s KB Contractors. It has also been alleged in the charge sheet that many amendments were carried out in the tender documents and a number of new equipments and accessories which were originally missing from the tender were included by all the accused persons. Further, the number of equipments required for the plant was increased and specifications of some equipment were changed and several accessories to the boiler were included. These amendments so carried out in the tender were intimated only to M/s KB Contractors and the other two bidders were kept in the dark. Finally, the said tender in which even the specifications and model no.s of Stefab equipment were mentioned, was dishonestly approved by Brig A.K. Soni (co-accused) on 20.05.1995.