VINAY MAHAJAN Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this order I shall be disposing of three Criminal Miscellaneous Petitions Nos. 16029-M of 2003 (Vinay Mahajan v. State of Punjab), 16031-M of 2003 (Surinder Kumar v. State of Punjab) and 16033-M of 2003 (Vinay Kumar v. State of Punjab) as all the three petitions arise out of the same FIR No. 13 dated March 28, 2003, under Sections 409/120-B IPC, read with Section 13(1) & (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, registered at police station Vigilance Bureau, Amritsar.

(2.) BRIEFLY the case of the prosecution is that Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vigilance Bureau, Amritsar received a secret information that Vinay Mahajan (petitioner in Crl. Misc. 16029/M), who is President of Nagar Council Sujanpur, in connivance with Surinder Kumar, Municipal Commissioner (petitioner in Crl. Misc. 16031/M), Girdhari Lal, another Member of the said Committee and Jagtar Singh, Executive Officer had appointed 9 Clerks in violation of rules because the said persons were very close to them. The other allegation against Vinay Mahajan and Surinder Kumar applicants is that they being President and the Municipal Commissioner gave possession of land of the Nagar Council to one Vipan Kumar, which was of the value of lacs of rupees. The other allegations highlighted against Vinay Mahajan are that he being the President had got a street constructed leading to the lone house of one Suresh Kumar, Municipal Councillor, causing a loss to the tune of Rs. 4 lacs to the Municipal Council; that he caused another loss to the tune of Rs. 2.50 lacs to the Council by constructing lanes on the land belonging to the Canal Department without getting any sanction from it; that being the President, he also gave contracts to his close contractors to the tune of more than Rs. 64 lacs and the said contractors did not execute the works properly; that he also caused a loss to the tune of Rs. 1.50 lacs by auctioning the octroi at a lower rate and that he also granted illegal revision of house-tax to his favourite persons to the tune of Rs. 85,000/-, thereby causing loss to the Council. Primarily on these allegations the present case was registered by the Vigilance Department against the present petitioners.

(3.) MR . Bali appearing for Vinay Mahajan and Surinder Kumar petitioners has vehemently argued that after both these petitioners were granted the concession of interim relief by this Court vide order dated April 17, 2003, they had been joining the investigation as and when called upon to do so. It is then contended that the other two co-accused namely Girdhari Lal, who was also Member of the Committee and Jagtar Singh, who was posted as Executive Officer at the relevant time, have been granted the concession of regular bail by learned Special Judge, Gurdaspur vide order dated April 10, 2003 itself, whereas the bail applications of the present petitioners, who were almost similarly situated, have been declined without assigning any reasons. Mr. Bali further contends that the prosecution agency has not been able to show the culpability of the present two petitioners with any of the allegations.