Court framed corruption charges against then Xen & Ors
JKUT (Jammu), November-17-2021-( JNF):- Additional Sessions Judge Anticorruption Udhampur SC Katal framed charges against then Xen Mohore and Ors for allotment of most of the work in the R&B SPL. Sub. Div. Mahore to blue eyed persons.
Court framed charges against Sunil Gupta the then XEN Special Sub Division Mahore, Lakh Deep Singh Jamwal, AAO in the office of Xen Special Sub Division Mohore Reasi, Chatter Singh, Abdul Hamid, Mohd Hanief, Farman Ali and Mohd. Afzal contractors.
According to ACB case that a verification conducted by Vigilance Organization to enquire into the allegations of allotment of most of the work in the R&B SPL. Sub. Div. Mahore to blue eyed persons in violation of codal formalities reveals that Ex. Engineer R & B Sub.Div.Mahore had shown 162 works executed departmentally during the financial year 2010-11 involving total amount of Rs.2/53/87/520/-without inviting any tenders thereby defeating the purpose of ascertainment of rationality of rates and getting the work executed through professional contractors and making the payment without deducting service tax. The information received from Ex. Engineer R & B Spl. Sub. Div.Mahore revealed that the work were executed departmentally on emergent basis through the agency whose land/houses were coming under the alignment of road constructed in the division, where as the verification conducted found that most of the works were executed through Sh. Chatter Singh S/o Mian Ram R/o Kanthi, Ab. Hamid S/o Mohamdoo R/o Bagga Reasi, Mohd Hanief S/o Abdul Rashid R/o Dharmari and Farman Ali S/o Juma R/o Dharmi who were regular contractors and whose land/ house never came under the alignment of road. The verification conducted revealed that the then Ex. Engineer R & B Spl.Sub Div. Mahore had abused his official position and allotted the works to his blue eyed contractors under the garb of departmental execution and further benefitted them by not deducting service tax while releasing payments in their favour. The verification further revealed that works amounting to aprox.2.53 Crore were got executed departmentally by Ex. Engineer R & B Spl. Sub Div. Mahore by deliberately fragmenting them in parts so as to bring them within the financial competence and undue benefit was conferred upon blue eyed contractors by first allotting them works without inducing any competition and further releasing payments in their favour without deduction of service tax from their payments. The payments have been worked out to Rs.2,53,87,520/- was released without deduction. Accordingly FIR above mentioned for commission of offences under Sections 5(1) (d) read with Section 5(2) P.C. Act, 2006 came to be registered in Police Station Vigilance Organization Jammu (Now ACB ) Udhampur.
The investigation officer in the course of investigation has come to the conclusion that total numbers of works executed/ allotted by Sunil Gupta the then Xen PWD ( R & B ) Spl. Sub- Division Mahore during the year 2010-11 were 161 numbers amounting to Rs.2,86,32,080/- on which calculation of loss due to the non deduction of service tax @ 10 % come to the Rs. 28,63,208/- to the state exchequer . Investigation further reveals that as per pre-conceived conspiracy hatched among XEN Sunil Gupta, Lakhdeep Singh AAO and blue eyed contractors, out of 161 works 30 no. of works were allotted to Chatter Singh S/o Mian Ram R/o Kanthi amount to Rs. 59,98,085/- , 21 were allotted to Abdul Hamid S/o Sh. Mohamdoo R/o Bagha amount to Rs. 43,86,890/-, 14 were allotted to Mohd Hanief S/o Abdul Rashid R/o Dharmari amounting to Rs. 16,22,945/-, 15 were allotted to Farman Ali S/o Juma R/o Dharmari amount to Rs. 35,84,600/- and 14 works amounting to Rs.26,41,440/- were allotted to Mohd Afzal S/o Jamal Din
R/o Bagga whereas rest of the minor works were got executed through different 30 contractors. It is thus, became clear from the records that 94 works amount to Rs. 1,82,33,960/- were allotted to five blue eyed contractors and to cover up the favours minor works were allotted to 30 others contractors. Executive Engineer has provided list and photocopies of contractor’s card of some of contractors. The scrutiny of letter no. 1365 dated 18.06.2013 received from Engineer, PWD ( R & B ) Spl. Sub Division Mahore revealed that the land / houses of 186 individuals came under the alignment of different roads of PWD ( R & B ) Special Sub -Division Mahore. However, the land of none of the contractors like chatter Singh, Farman Ali, Abdul Hamid and Mohd Hanief except Mohd Afzal come under the alignment of any road under rules and as per the practice the works were required to be put to tenders by the department which the department failed to do so. During further investigation it is surfaced that service tax @ 10 % was to be deduced from the contractors while releasing payment to them but no deduction was made from the contractors. Total works executed by contractors were 161, out of which investigation w.r.t 94 works has been conducted & loss of Rs.19,50,954 has been found to the Govt. Exchequer. The challan further reveals that investigation of the remaining 67 works are under progress and investigation has been kept open in terms of Section 173(8) of the Cr.P.C and as and when the investigation of the remaining works in completed, supplementary charge-sheet shall be produced before the court.
Additional Sessions Judge Anticorruption Udhampur SC Katal after hearing APP Himanshu Parkash for the ACB whereas Advocates Rakesh Chargotra, Bhanu Salathia and Gulshan Singh for the accused persons observed that there is sufficient oral as well as documentary evidence available on file/record which on its face value reveals that accused no. 7 (Mr. Sunil Gupta) the then Xen PWD ( R & B ) Special Sub Division Mahore in leauge with accused No.1 namely Lakhdeep Singh Jamwal Assistant Accounts Officer in office of Xen Special Sub Division Mahore deliberately fragmented the works in parts to bring them within his financial competence & by abusing his official position got executed 161 number of works amount of Rs. 2.86 crores without inviting tenders. The accused no 1 & 7 by misuse of their official position & in league with accused no 2 to 6 released the payments to the contractors without deducting the service tax at the then prevailing rate i.e @ 10 %. Out of 161 numbers of work executed the investigation in respect of 94 works was conducted and loss of Rs. 19,50,954/- has been detected to the Govt. Exchequer which is direct benefit to the blue eyes contractors i.e accused no. 2 to 6. The conspiracy is hatched in secrecy sometimes direct evidence cannot be produced but conspiracy angle can be proved by the conduct of the parties. Herein, this case the accused no 7 first fragmented the works to bring under his competence to avoid the tenders & thereafter allot the works to his blue eyed persons. The payment bills were prepared without deducting the service tax & the accused no 1 who was the financial expert also draw the bills without deduction of service tax & the contractors received the undue benefits at the costs of the huge loss to state exchequer. So it can be inferred from the conduct of accused persons that there was meeting of mind of accused persons to drain the state exchequer in order to provide undue benefits to the contractors/ beneficiaries.
Thus, accused No. 1 and 7 deliberately by misuse of their official position as govt. officials have misappropriated the Govt. money entrusted to them firstly by not inviting tenders & thereafter, by non-deduction of the service tax @ 10 % resulting loss to the Govt. exchequer in respect of works executed in the year 2010-11, to give benefits to the accused No. 2 to 6 and accused no.2 to 6 in league with accused No. 1 and 7 have received the undue benefits thereby the accused have caused huge loss to the Govt. Exchequer. Hence, a prima facie case is made out for framing charge under sections under Section 5(1)(d) read with section 5(2) J&K P.C.Act 2006 read with section 120-B RPC against the accused No. 1 and 7 whereas prima facie case u/s 120-B RPC is made out accused No. 2 to 6. The accused persons are charge-sheeted accordingly. JNF