YOGENDRA KUMAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present appeal under section 17 of the Bihar Special Court Act, 2009 ('the Act' in short) has been preferred by the appellants, who had been asked to explain by an appropriate notice issued under section 14 of the Act the acquisition of different properties, total value of which stood, as per the petition filed by the State of Bihar, at Rs.9,71,761. The above corpus of properties was acquired by appellant Yogendra Kumar Singh, who had joined as a Suit Clerk in Gaya Municipal Corporation on 7.2.1966 and was retired from service as Upper Division Clerk on 31.3.2005. In between, he was acting as the Revenue Officer of the above noted Municipal Corporation and as per the allegation, which emanated from some anonymous petition filed before the District Magistrate, Gaya, the graph of financial progress of appellant no. 1 had 2 taken a sharp ascent due to his indulgence in realizing bribe and acquisition of properties by commission of offence as defined under section 2(d) of the Act.

(2.) What appears further is that the District Magistrate sent the petition to the Vigilance Department and an internal enquiry continued for many more years and lastly, on that petition which was received by the District Magistrate, Gaya some times in 1999, Vigilance P.S. Case no. 82 of 2007 was registered which was pending before the learned Special Court for trial.

(3.) In view of the provisions of section 13 of the Act, the State of Bihar may through the Public Prosecutor, file a petition after presenting the prima facie evidence indicating reasons to believe to the State Government that after commission of the offence under section 2(d) of the Act a public servant either serving or retired, had acquired properties either in his own name or in the name of any other persons which could be disproportionate to the known source of his income. On such petition being filed, it is incumbent that a notice under section 14 of the Act has to go to the persons in whose name the acquired properties by the public servant, serving or retired, is said to be acquired. In spite of the case having been registered in 2007 and the charge sheet having been submitted long back, the petition under section 13 of the Act was filed in year 2010 and on that basis the learned Authorized Officer, Special Court - II, Vigilance, Patna registered Special Case no. 6 of 2010 under section 13 of the Act for adjudication of the petition. On notices being served upon the appellants and one Mohan Kumar Singh, they appeared and filed a joint statement of defence annexing various documents in support of the same.