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| Anti Corruption Court acquits accused, as CBI fails to prove its case | | |
JAMMU, AUGUST-23:- Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu Kartar Singh today acquitted Pal Singh, Audit Officer in the office of Principal Controller of Defence Accounts, who was caught red-handed by the CBI team on July, 2003.
The Special Judge Anticorruption, after hearing Sr. Public Prosecutor appearing for the CBI and Advocate CM Gupta appearing for the accused, referred various judgments of the Supreme Court including the judgment of five judge bench of the Supreme Court in case of State of Bihar Vs Basawan Singh and observed that it can safely been inferred that the statement of the complainant should not be believed without corroboration when independent witnesses were available but have not supported the prosecution case. The statement of the complainant and other witnesses cannot be relied upon in absence of independent corroborative evidence. In such a situation the bribe giver is treated as no better than accomplice, so evidence in needed to corroborate from the independent sources, if not as a rule of law than at least a rule of caution and prudence. Both the independent witnesses have not supported the prosecution case rendering it doubtful.
The complainant and other army officers have a motive to implicate the accused and this possibility cannot be ruled out. The accused is an audit officer and he has conducted the audit of the unit of the complainant and raised certain objections which the complainant and his officers wanted to be cleared but the accused did not relent. As per the statement of the complainant, he firstly visited the office of the accused on May 20, 2003 and the accused demanded Rs 15000 for clearing the audit objections. On the second occasion he visited the office of the accused on June 27, 2003 but he did not oblige him and enhanced the bribe amount to Rs 20000 than the complainant reported the matter to Lt, COL, SS Bhullar who dictated the complaint and directed him to go to the office of SP, CBI Jammu. Complainant kept the complaint with him till 8th and on the said day he requested the accused to clear the audit objections and when he failed to do so, he lodged the complaint before CBI. From the statement of the complainant it is proved that his main aim was to get audit objections cleared. The first demand was made by the accused on May 20, 2003 but the complainant lodged the FIR only on July 9, 2003. Even after handing over the complaint to him Lt Col SS Bhullar, the complainant kept it with him. This goes to prove that firstly the complainant pressurized the accused to clear his audit objection and when he did not oblige him, he lodged a complaint with CBI at a later stage.
Kartar Singh after considering the statements of the various witnesses further observed that the defence of the accused is total denial of all the prosecution allegations. He has further stated that he did not demanded any bribe money from the complainant on May 20, 2003 as he was on leave on that day. Sunil Kumar Accounts Officer at the relevant time has stated that on May 12, 2003, the accused applied for leave which was sanctioned from May 17, 2003 and from May 19, 2003 to May 23, 2003. The case of the prosecution is that on May 20, 2003, the complainant went to the office of the accused and accused demanded bribe from him. This assertion of the prosecution does not appear to common sense because when the accused was on leave on May 20, 2003, he was not supposed to be in his office and as such the question of demanding bribe from the complainant does not arise at all. The prosecution has failed to prove basic ingredients of the evidence of bribery that is demand, acceptance and recovery of the tainted money from the accused. The present case has such, straightway merits the acquittal of the accused accordingly accused is acquitted of the charges leveled against him. JNF
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