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| Court releases property attached by VOJ | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu |May 15
Allowing the appeal against the order of attachment of property the State Vigilance Organization, the Special Judge, Anticorruption, Jammu Mr. Kartar Singh has set-aside the order of Designated Authority and ordered release of attached property in favour of appellant.
According to the appeal filed by Mumtaz Hussain Bhat presently posted in District Institute of Education and Training Poonch as Junior Assistant, FIR for the commission of offence u/s 5(1) (e) r/w section 5(2) of PC Act 2006 was registered against him and during the course of investigation SSP (PRK) VOJ allegedly working as an Investigating Officer passed an order for attaching the property of appellant situated at Mohalla Gandi Kassi Ward No 10, Poonch comprising of 3 storied building with 3 shops in ground floor. Special Judge Anticorruption, after hearing both the sides observed that the case of the prosecution that the attached house was reconstructed by the appellant and its value is Rs. 17.17 lakhs but nothing has been stated in this regard in the order of attachment passed by the IO. Even if it is presumed that the said house was reconstructed by the appellant, the IO as well as the Designated Authority has ignored certain silent features of this case. It is stated that the father of the appellant constructed a house along with two shops in the year 1970 and the said property started generating his income. The appellant has also attached copies of number of agreements to sell which proved that he had sold some land also and in this way he generated his income for renovation of the house. The total income of the appellants has neither been considered by IO nor the Designated Authority in order to come to the conclusion that said income was not sufficient to renovate the house. On this ground also, the order of the attachment and impugned order are bad in the yea of law.
Court further observed that the Designated Authority has passed this order without application of mind and in haste without permitting the appellant to rebut the allegations made against him by the IO. Designated Authority has primarily based his order on the entries made in the case dairies and has incorporated in the impugned order that in addition to the written submission made by the appellant the case dairies have also been considered. This is not the requirement of law because the Designated Authority while holding enquiry, did not exercise his jurisdiction as a civil court but based his finding on entries made in the case dairies. In other words, no proper enquiry has been conducted in this case because while functioning as Civil Court it was not possible to conclude the enquiry so early. It has resulted in miscarriage of justice because the principles of natural justice have been violated and the appellant has been condemned unheard. With these observations, Court allowed the appeal and set-aside the impugned order, the attached property shall stand released in favour petitioner. JNF |
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