OM PARKASH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeal is directed against the judgment/order dated 3/ 4.3.2008 passed by the learned Special Judge, Gurgaon, whereby the accused/appellant has been convicted for the offences punishable un-der Sections 7 and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for short 'the Act') and sentenced as under:

(2.) Brief facts of the case as projected by the prosecution are that Bharat Petroleum Corpo-ration Limited allotted a petrol pump to Smt. Sunita Bhatti, wife of Veenu Bhatti. She was required to obtain a No Objection Certificate from Om Parkash, Block Development and Panchayat Officer (herein 'the appellant'). Veenu Bhatti husband of Smt. Sunita Bhatti (herein 'the complainant') approached the of-fice of the appellant and submitted the relevant documents. The appellant demanded a sum of Rs.5,000 as bribe for doing the needful. The complainant and his wife did not pay the said amount and they approached the State Vigilance Bureau, Gurgaon and submitted an application/ complaint.

(3.) A raiding party comprising of Inspector Satbir Singh and Sh V.S. Hooda, General Manager, Haryana Roadways was constituted. SI Daulat Ram joined the raiding party as shadow witness. The complainant handed over three currency notes of denomination of Rs. 1,000 each and four currency notes of denomination of Rs.500 each to the raiding party and the same were returned to him after putting initials of the Investigating Officer and Mr. V.S. Hooda after applying phenolphthalein powder. On reaching the office of the accused, the complainant and SI Daulat Ram were deputed in the office of the accused for giving signal and the others re-mained present at some distance. The complain-ant entered the office of the accused/appellant and made payment of the currency notes to the accused. After receiving the signal from SI Daulat Ram, Inspector Satbir Singh and Virender Singh Hooda also reached on the spot and recovered the currency notes of Rs.5,000 lying on the table of the accused/appellant. The recovered cur-rency notes were the same which were handed over to the complainant and the same were taken into police possession. Hands of the ac-cused were got washed in a solution of Sodium Carbonate whereupon the colour of the water turned light pink. Thereafter the raiding party completed the hand wash process and also ob-tained the samples from the remaining hand wash solution. The samples were sent to Direc-tor, FSL, Madhuban for analysis.