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| HC offers relief to Telecom employee | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | July 30
Justice Sunil Hali of J&K High Court Jammu Wing today quashed the judgment of the trial court and set aside the conviction and sentence of the petitioner. This judgment was passed in an appeal filed against the judgment of Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu where by the Trial Court on April 30, 2004 convicted and sentenced to PN Dogra (petitioner) an employee of telephone Dept under prevention of corruption Act. The accused was allegedly caught red-handed by the CBI on March 8, 2000 while accepting Rs 500 as bribe.
According to the CBI case that a written complaint was filed by one Rajesh Kumar Jagotra of Indra Vihar Jammu in which the complainant alleged that petitioner/ accused had demanded Rs 500 for making the
telephone connection functional of the complainant CBI registered a
case and constituted a trap team and laid a trap and caught accused red-handed and recovered bribe money from his pocket. After completion of the investigation challan was presented in the Court of Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu whereby the Trial Court on April 30, 2004 convicted the accused u/s 161 RPC r/w section 5(2) of PC Act 2006 and ordered simple imprisonment of one year under Corruption Act u/s 161 RPC and both the sentences shall run concurrently.
The convict filed a criminal appeal against the conviction, High Court suspended the sentence.
Justice Sunil Hali, after hearing Adv Sunil Sethi with Adv Veenu Gupta for the petitioner whereas Adv Navneet Dubey appeared for the CBI, and going through the case and referred various judgments of the Supreme Court and observed that other aspects of the matter is whether the accused can be convicted with any bribe giving transaction, the allegations against the accused is that he demanded Rs 500 as bribe for making the telephone functional of the complainant. Two prosecution witnesses namely VK Revu and BL Kak have categorically stated that the telephone was made functional on March 2, 2000. They further stated that the complainant is not correct in saying that the telephone was not made functional on March 2, 2000. The prosecution version is that the accused had committed some mischief without indicating the nature of mischief. As a matter of fact his allegation has not been proved by the prosecution as to what mischief was committed by the accused in making the telephone non-functional. It would be unsafe to rely upon the allegation not being corroborated that accused had demanded money to make the telephone functional when witnesses of the Department had confirmed and based upon the record that it was made functional prior to the demand of bribe. There was no occasion for the appellant to demand bribe under these circumstances.
In his 35 page judgment Justice Hali quoted a judgment of the Supreme Court titled K Subba Reddy, in which it has been held that if the accused has no role to play, he cannot be convicted for the offence accepting illegal gratification as a reward or motive for doing that work. In view of the aforesaid decision of the Supreme Court, there is no sufficient material to hold the appellant guilty, accordingly, his conviction and sentence is set-aside as a consequence of which the judgment of trial Court shall stand quashed. JNF |
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