BRAJKISHOREJAISWAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has approached this Court in this writ-petition for quashing the proceedings pending against them in special Case No. 8 of 1983 in the Court of learned Special Judge, Dhanbad arising out of Vigilance Case No. 23/1983 dated 2.12.1983 under sections 120-B, 420, 468, 471 and 477 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 5(2) read with section 5(1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.

(2.) Vigilance Case No. 20/1983 was registered on 2.12.1983 on the basis of the First Information Report filed by Tribhuwan Nath Pandey, Deputy S.P. Cabinet (Vigilance), Hazanbagh. Thereafter Special Case No. 8 of 1983 was registered in the Court of Special Judge, Dhanbad, a copy of the First Information Report has been annexed to this petition as Annexure 1 and the allegations in the F.I.R. are as follows: "I am to state that Sri Awatar Singh, Sri Ram Padarath Singh and Sri Isaharul Haque, while functioning as Executive Officer, Junior Engineer and Store keeper respectively of Hazaribagh Municipality, dunng the period 1980 entered into criminal conspiracy with Sn Dharam Narain Agrawalla, Proprietor and Sri Sheo Kumar Pankh, Sales Manager of M/s National Tar Product I, Dr M Ishaque Road, Calcutta and others cheated the Municipality on the basis of forged and fabricated papers/documents and falsified the municipal accounts Besides, the Government officials misused their official position and obtained undue pecuniary benefits by corrupt and illegal means for themselves and for others and thereby causes a pecuniary loss of Rs 2,71,116/- to the State exchequer That the Hazanbagh Municipality was in need of Bitumen for the purpose of the repairs of Urban Roads Accordingly the Bitumener was to be supplied That the order for supply of Bitumen to the tune of 150 M T was irregularly and dishonestly placed on M/s National Tar Product, Calcutta That there are only two routes through which the vehicles can come to Hazanbagh from Calcutta On these routes there were commercial check posts, where the entries of the loaded vehicles were to be checked and entered in their Registers That a cheque vide SB I Hazanbagh cheque No 954489 dated 351980 for Rs 3,42,750/- was issued in favour of the Firm pnor to the issuance of the supply order This cheque was received by Sri S K Pankh, Sales Manager of the firm who encashed the same in the form of Bank Draft The stock Register of Bitumen of Hazaribagh Municipality envisaged the receipt of bitumen as under:- <FRM>JUDGEMENT_188_BLJ1_1996Html1.htm</FRM> The above table shows the receipt of Bitumen less than what was mentioned in the relating challans In addition to the above, the accused persons had fraudulently and dishonestly shown the receipt of bitumen in 518 Drams weighing 12838 in the stock register on the basis of forged and fabncated challans which did not bear the seal of any of the commercial check posts nor there was any entries of the con cerned vehicles in the registers of the chect post The details of these challans are as under: - <FRM>JUDGEMENT_188_BLJ1_1996Html2.htm</FRM> As such the accused persons made false entnes of the receipt of Bitumen without supply of the Bitumen for which the payment has already been made The aforesaid tacts reveal commission of an offence u/s 120B/420/468/471/ 477-A, I PC and 5(2) R/W 5(1) (d) of the PC Act 1947 by the aforesaid accused persons I, therefore, request that a case may kindly be registered under the above sections against the above noted accused persons for investigation "

(3.) It appears that the five accused persons were named in the F.I.R. and the petitioner was not one of them. The petitioner was added as co-accused in the case subsequently on the basis of application made by the prosecution in the year 1985. After the case was registered against the petitioner, the petitioner was enlarged on bail. Charge-sheet in the case was filed for the first time on 26/11/1990. Thereafter first supplementary chargesheet and second supplementary charge sheet were filed on 31/7/1991 and 2/9/1992, respectively. The charges were not framed against the petitioner and other accused persons till the time of approaching this Court in this petition.