Delhi District Court
The Present Case Was Registered On ... vs Pollonji Darabshaw Air 1988 Sc 88 ... on 17 September, 2016
IN THE COURT OF SHRI PARVEEN SINGH
ASJ/SPECIAL JUDGE, CBI02, NEW DELHI DISTRICT,
PATIALA HOUSE COURTS, NEW DELHI
CC No. 12/2010
RC No. DAI /2007/A0004/ACB/CBI/New Delhi
U/s 109 IPC & Section 13 (2) r/w 13 (1) (e) of PC Act 1988
Central Bureau of Investigation
Versus
1 Braj Raj Singh Rathaur s/o late Sh. Chandan Singh Rathaur
r/o 18, Delhi Administration Flats, Greater Kailash-I
New Delhi.
Permanent Address
303, Circular Road, Fatehgarh, UP
(also at A-77, Sector Alfa-I, Greater Noida,
District Gautam Budh Nagar, UP)
2 Smt. Satyawati Singh @ Maa Devi Satya
W/o late Sh. Surender Pal Singh
r/o Mohalla Behaty, Leharpur, District Sitapur
U. P. (Since deceased)
.....Accused.
Date of Institution : 30.04.2010.
Arguments heard on : 17.09.2016
Date of Judgment : 17.09.2016.
JUDGMENT
1. The present case was registered on 19.1.2007 against accused Braj Singh Rathaur the then Dy. Commissioner, MCD, Civil Lines Zone, Delhi for offences u/s 109 IPC & 13 (2) r/w 13 (1) (e) of POC Act on the basis of a written CC No. 12/2010 1 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 complaint filed by Sh. D. K. Barik, Dy. SP CBI, EOUV, New Delhi as during the course of search in another case of CBI bearing RC No. 9 ( E)/2006EOUV, on 11.10.2006 a cash of Rs. 36.5 lacs, documents showing assets, expenditure and income in the name of accused B.R. S. Rathaur and his other family members, were seized from his residence at 18, Delhi Administration Flats, G. K.I, New Delhi.
2. Case of Prosecution:
2.1 Investigation conducted in the matter had revealed that accused B. R. S. Rathaur was a DANICS officer of 1983 bath. He joined the service on 1.1.1985 in Delhi. Before joining in Delhi he had also served a a PCS officer in the State of Uttar Pradesh from 4.7.1983 to 31.12.1984. During his service as DANICS officer, BRS Rathaur remained posted and functioned in different capacities in several departments. He belongs to Village Jainapur in Farrukhabad UP. His father Sh.
Chandan Singh Rathaur was an Advocate who expired in the year 1999. BRS Rathaur has three brothers and two elder sisters who all are married and living independently. Accused BRS Rathaur was married to Smt. Manju Mishra on 30.11.1988 and after about three years, on account of marital dispute they were separated on finalization of divorce petition. Accused BRS Rathaur has one daughter who lives with her mother at Lucknow.
2.2 The prosecution for the purposes of investigation had taken the check period from 1.1.85 to 11.10.2006. During the course of investigation, documents pertaining to assets, expenditure and income of accused BRS Rathaur were collected and witnesses were examined.
Statement A: Assets at the beginning of Check Period. 2.3 Investigation disclosed that BRS Rathaur had also worked as PCS CC No. 12/2010 2 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 officer in the state of UP from 4.7.1983 to 31.12.1984 before joining the DANICS. The details of pay and allowances drawn by BRS Rathaur for the said period are given as under: Sl. No. Description of Name of the Holder Total value (Rs.) Assets/income 1 Gross pay & B. R. S. Rathaur Gross Salary = Allowances drawn 23,086/ by Sh. B. R. S. 1/3rd of this gross Rathaur from the payand allowances date of joining is taken towards PCS, UP ie from kitchen expenses 4.7.83 to 21.12.84. which comes to Rs.
7695/ so the benefit of income at the beginning of the check period is given as Rs.
15,391/( Rs.
23,086 - 7,695/) Total Rs.15,391/ 2.4 Investigation further revealed that Sh. B. R. S. Rathaur had invested the funds in acquisition & construction of house at Plot No. A77, Sector AlphaI , Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, Gautam Budh Nagar ( UP). A residential plot of 200 sq. mts bearing No. A77, Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida, UP was allotted to BRS Rathaur on 30.4.94 on his application dated 31.3.92. The initial cost of the plot was Rs. 1.7 lac. However, being the corner plot BRS Rathaur had deposited Rs. 68,000/ in addition to the original amount, therefore, total expenditure on purchase of this plot comes to Rs. 2,63,574/. On 8.5.98 Sh. Rathaur executed CC No. 12/2010 3 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 GPA of the aforesaid plot in favour of his maternal aunt Smt. Satyawati Singh @ Devi Satya who was stated to be a spiritual guru having some followers. 2.5 Investigation further revealed that on 18.8.2000 a trust was registered by Smt. Satyawati Singh, Professor Sushma Rathaur ( sister of Sh. Rathaur), Dr. Anand Kumar ( husband of Smt. Sushma Rathaur ) and Miss Seema Sharma ( Ex PA of Sh. Rathaur). The trust is shown to have two properties ( a ) Property No. A 77, Sector Alpha I,Greater Noida, UP and cash of Rs. 51,000/. On 18.8.2000 itself, Smt. Satyawati Singh had executed power of attorney of the trust including both properties in favour of BRS Rathaur. On 12.7.2001 Sh. BRS Rathaur, vide transfer cum gift deed, transferred the property No. A77 Sector Alpha 1 Greater Noida, UP in favour of Smt. Satyawati Singh. However, on 20.4.2005 Smt. Satyawati Singh executed GPA and Will in respect of the aforesaid property in favour of Sh. BRS Rathaur. During investigation Sh. BRS Rathaur and Smt. Satyawati Singh claimed that the said building was constructed from the building material donated by several followers and a contribution of Rs. 07 lac was received from Sh. Chandan Singh Rathaur, father of BRS Rathaur. However, during investigation they could not produce any documents/details of such followers or the contributions. No evidence had to light in support of their claim. Therefore, the aforesaid property which is evaluated to the tune of Rs. 29,70,600/ is attributed to Sh. BRS Rathaur. The details of which are given as under: Sr. Description of Assets Name of the Total Value (Rs) No. Holder 1 Residential Plot No. A77 Sec BRS Rathaur Cost of the plot measuring AlphaI, Greater Noida 200 sq.m = 1,71,674/.
Industrial Development Additional Cost of 80 sq.m
CC No. 12/2010 4
(Parveen Singh)
Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016
Authority, Guatam Budh Nagar, for additional piece of the
UP applied on 31.3.92 and land adjoining to the
allotted on 18.8.92 in the name allotted plot = 68,000/
of BRS Rathaur Lease Rent=23800/
Charges towards execution
of lease deed = 100/
Total= 2,63,574/
(31.3.92 to 7.4.98)
2 Cost of construction of built up BRS Rathaur Rs. 29,70,600/
house at plot No. A77, Sec
Alpha1, Greater Noida, Gautam
Budh Nagar UP ( Evaluated by
the Engineering staff of Income
Tax Department, Meerut )
Period of construction is taken
from the date of issuance of
building Sanction Plan dt
24.9.98 upto 9.3.2000 when Sh.
BRS Rathaur submitted
documents for issuance of
completion certificate.
Total of immovable Assets = Rs. 32,34,174/
2.6 Investigation further revealed that accused had invested in several
mutual funds, several bank accounts, shares of different companies, tax saving bonds etc in his own name. It is also alleged that a case of Rs. 36.5 lacs was also recovered from the residence of Sh. BRS Rathaur at 18, Delhi Government Officers Flats, Greater KailashI, New Delhi. Thus the total immovable and movable assets possessed by BRS Rathaur comes to Rs. 1,10,96,410/. Movable Assets.
Sr. Description of Assets Name of the Holder Total Value (Rs.) No CC No. 12/2010 5 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 1 Closing balance as on 15.7.06 I SB Sh.B. R. S. Rathaur 2295.86 a/c no. 3145 with Extn. Counter Central Bank of India, Vikas Kutir Tilak Bridge, New Delhi.
2 Balance as on 11.10.06 in SB a/c No. Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,10,582.65 01190008049 ( New A/c No. 0010670640261) with SBI, M. Block Market, GK II, N. Delhi.
3 Closing balance as on 30.9.06 in SB Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,65,208.93 a/c No. 01SMP2485800 ( new a/c and Smt. Manjula no. 52110030059 with Standard Rathaur (Smt. Chartered Bank, Bahadur Shah Manjula Rathaur is Zafar Marg, ITO New Delhi. thesister of Sh.
Rathaur but
operation of the
said account was
conducted by him
ie the funds
available belong to
Sh. Rathaur
4 Closing Balance as on 5.8.06 in SB Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 3,754.38
a/c No. 847 with Punjab & Sind
Bank, Bikrikar Bhavan, N. Delhi
5 Investment in Franklin India Smaller Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000
Companies Fund - Growth Plan on
13.1.2006
6 Gold ornaments purchased from Sh. B. R. Singh r/o 98,014
Tanishq, South ExtnI, N. Delhi on A77, Sector Alpha, 19.7.06 Greater Noida 7 Closing balance as on 7.10.06 in SB Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,11,336.68 A/c No. 002901053166 with ICICI Bank W57, GKI, New Delhi.
8 Balance in SB A/c No. CLSB Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 31,105 CC No. 12/2010 6 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 01/50014 as on 11.10.06 with Corporation Bank, GKII, N. Delhi.
9 Investment as on 11.10.06 in shares Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 15,83,888.31 of different companies like Reliance Industries, Ultra Cement, Ashok Leyland, NTPC, REL, SAIL, Wipro, PNB, Dena Bank, Jet Airways etc 10 Investment in TATA Dividend Yield Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 FundGrowth ( Folio No. 466337, Date of Transaction 22.11.04 ) On redemption accused has received Rs.
74,01469 on 10.1.06 which has been reflected in his income.
11 Investment in TATA Service Indus Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 FundGrowth ( Folio No. 3251103593 Date of Transaction 5.4.2005). On redemption accused has received Rs. 73,195.76/ on 23.8.06 which has been reflected in his income.
12 Investment in KOTAK Midcap Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 Growth Mutual Fund ( Folio No. 340046/11) on 24.2.05.
13 Tax Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 30,000 Ltd ( Jkanuary 2003, Folio/Bond Holder No. 4137195) 14 Tax Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 20,000 Ltd ( December 2001, Folio/Bond Holder No. 2307539) 15 Tax Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 10,000 Ltd ( February 2001, Folio /Bond Holder No. 0600743) 16 Tax Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 10,000 CC No. 12/2010 7 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Ltd ( February 2000, Folio/Bond Holder No. 7253449 17 Tax Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 10,000 Ltd (December 1998, Folio/Bond Holder No. 4730165 18 Birla Sunlife Equity Fund ( Folio Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 No. 1012687073 Date 24.2.2005 19 Investment in SBI Mutual Fund Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 ( LO94G Magnum COMMA Fund Grown Folio No. 540895) Date:
8.8.2005) Accused has received an amount of Rs. 65,594 on redemption on 23.8.06 which has been shown in his income.
20 Investment in SBI Mutual Fund Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 ( LO99 Magnum Multicap Fund Growth Folio No. 5811886 ( Date 29.9.2005) 21 Investment in SBI Mutual Fund Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,00,000 ( L103G SBI Blue Chip Fund Growth Folio No. 6307021) Date 14.2.2006 22 Total value estimated with regards Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 3,64,550 to house hold articles found in the residence of Sh. B.R.S. Rathaur at Flat No. 18, Delhi Administration Flats, GKI, New Delhi on the day of search.
23 Cash recovered from suit case kept Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 36,48,500
on the steel almirah in bedroom of (although Rs. 36.5
Sh. B.R.S.Rathaur in his residence lakhs were
18, Delhi Administration Flats, GK recovered, however,
I, New Delhi on the day of search ie 3 notes of Rs. 500
CC No. 12/2010 8
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Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016
11.10.06. denomination were
detected fake.
24 Investment in Templeton India Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,00,000
Equity Income Fund ( a/c No.
2259901969438) on 20.4.2006
25 Investment in TATA Equity Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,25,000
Management FundGrowth ( Folio
No. 158840) Date of Transaction
7.6.2006
26 Investment in Fidelity India Special Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 5,00,000 Situation FundDivident ( Folio No. 673260/51, Date of transaction 20.4.2006) 27 Investment in Fidelity Tax Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,00,000 Advantage FundGrowth ( Folio No. 440014/31, Date of transaction 27.2.2006 28 Investment in Fidelity Equity Fund Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 1,25,000 Growth ( Folio No. 121336/33, Date of transaction 16.5.2005 29 Investment in HDFC Premier Multi Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 49,000 Cap FundGrowth ( Folio No. 2071959, Date of transaction 14.8.2005.
30 Earnest money deposited on Sh.B.R.S.Rathaur 2,20,000/ ( Being
31.8.2006 by Sh. BRS Rathaur vide an unsuccessful
application no. 016084 in BHS6 candidate the said
Scheme of Greater Noida Industrial application
Development Authority fee/earnest money
As per the details provided by has been refunded
Greater Noida Authority, no to Sh. Rathaur after
reference of aplication fee of Rs. 3.7 one month of date
lacs deposited in the said scheme in oof draw of plots
CC No. 12/2010 9
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Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016
the name of Smt. Manjula Rathaur The date of draw
sister of Sh. BRS Rathaur has come. was 8.11.2006
However in the above applicaton no. which is after the
016084 of Sh. Rathaur, name of Smt. last date of check
Manjula Rathaur has been period ).
mentioned as second applicant.
Total of Immovable & Movable assets = Rs. 78,62,235.81 + 32,34,174.00 = Rs.1,10,96,410/.
Statement C : Expenditure during the check period ( 1.1.85 to 11.10.2006) 2.7 Investigation further revealed that BRS Rathaur had paid premium towards six LIC policies in his name and also contributed towards his PPF A/c and towards Prime Minister's Relief Fund. He had also made expenditures towards mediclaim policies, transfer fee, plan process fee, water connection charges and completion charges towards property No. A77, Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida. Thus by adding kitchen expenses which are 1 /3rd of gross salary minus income tax paid, the total expenditure of Sh. BRS Rathaur comes to Rs. 33,68,885/ The details of which are given as under: Sr.No. Nature of Expenditure In the name of Total (Rs. ) 1 1/3rd of gross salary minus total Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.10,59,990/ income tax paid, spent to meet the kitchen expenses. ( gross salaryIT paid divided by three) Rs. 33,18,128 (Gross Salary Rs. 1,38,159 ( income tax paid)=Rs.31,79,969/ divided by 3 and the fiture comes to Rs. 10,59,990/ 2 Total premium paid upto 11.10.2006 Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.3,20,412/ towards LIC policy No. 11295554.
CC No. 12/2010 10(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Date of Commencement (DOC) 1.5.2000 (Status Inforce) 3 Total premium paid upto 11.10.2006 Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.1,00,000/ towards LIC policy No. 113345619 DOC 22.122001 ( Status;Inforce) 4 Total premium paid upto 11.10.2006 Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.1,50,000/ towards LIC policy No. 113344853 ( status: policy matured ) 5 Total premium paid upto 11.10.2006 Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.5,00,000/ towards LIC policy no.114608320 (one time DOC 9.8.2005 ( Status: Inforce) premium) 6 Total premium paid upto 11.10.2006 Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.5,00,000/ towards LIC policy No. 114608321 (one time DOC 9.8.2005 Status : Inforce premium) 7 Total premium paid upto 11.10.2006 Sh.BRS Rathaur Rs.85,293/ towards LIC policy No. 112581769 DOC 28.3.1999 8 Premium Paid towards Medical Sh.BRS Rathaur 2,038/ Management and claim (Family Health Plan Ltd ) PolicyNo.
351701/48/03/8501023, Plan period:
17.2.2004 to 16.2.2005)
9 Premium paid towards Medical Sh.BRS Rathaur 2,038/ Management and Claims ( Family Health Plan Ltd) Policy No. 351701/48/04/8501324, Plan Period:
17.2.2005 to 16.2.2006
10 Premium paid towards Medical Sh.BRS Rathaur 2,038/ Management and Claims ( Family Health Plan Ltd ) (Policy No. 351701/48/05/8500001824, Plan Period : 17.2.2006 to 16.2.2007) CC No. 12/2010 11 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 11 Total amount subscribed by Sh. Sh.BRS Rathaur 5,44,200/ BRS Rathaur towards PPF A/c No. 10670687288.
12 Amount subscribed by Sh. BRS Sh.BRS Rathaur 6,697/ Rathaur towards mediclaim policies.
13 Security Transaction Tax paid by Sh.BRS Rathaur 11,019.82/ Sh. BRS Rathaur with respect to Sale & Purchase of shares through PEE. AAR, Securities.
14 Contribution to the Prime Minister's Sh.BRS Rathaur 25,000/ Relief Fund on 24.01.2005 to mitigate the hardships caused by Tsunami Waves.
15 On 16.8.2004,225 shares of Essar Sh.BRS Rathaur 3071.25 Gujrat Ltd ( Unit name is Essar Steel Ltd) were transferred in the name of Sh. Braj Raj Singh Rathaur.
Rs. 3071.25 have been deposited towards value of stamps affixed on the transfer.
16 Transfer fee deposited with Greater Sh.BRS Rathaur 40,200/ Noida Authority on 14.6.2001 by Sh. BRS Rathaur on account of Transfer of Plot No. A77, Sect Alpha1, Greater Noida.
17 Payments towards clinical tests at Sh.BRS Rathaur 3,030/ Dr. Lal Paths Lab Pvt Ltd, Hanuman Road, New Delhi1.
18 Payments towards bill of mobile Sh.BRS Rathaur 5,523/ phone No. 9350142068 19 Plan processing fee deposited on Sh.BRS Rathaur 480/ 6.8.98 with Greater Noida CC No. 12/2010 12 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Authority in respect of plot No. A 77, Sec. Alpha, Greater Noida.
20 Water connection charges deposited Sh.BRS Rathaur 7830/ on 7.3.2000 with Greater Noida Authority in respect of plot No. A 77, Sec Alpha, Greater Noida 21 Completion charges deposited on Sh.BRS Rathaur 25/ 7.3.2000 with Greater Noida Authority in respect of Plot No. A 77, Sec Alpha, Greater Noida.
Total Rs. 33,68,885.07 ( Rs. 33,68,885/) Statement D: Income during the check period ( 1.1.1985 to 11.10.2006) 2.8 Investigation revealed that total income of BRS Rathaur from known sources like pay and allowances, maturity of PPF account, interest accrued in different bank accounts, payments of redemptions on different saving bonds of ICICI, refund from LIC policy, income from sale of shares of different companies, income earned from investment in UTI Schemes, part final GPF withdrawal, redemptions from different mutual funds etc has come to Rs. 54,41,350/ as per details given as under: Sr.No. Nature of income BRS Rathaur Total ( Rs.) 1 Interest accrued as on 15.7.2006 in BRS Rathaur 295.86/ SB Account No. 3145 with Extn.
Counter, Central Bank of India, Vikas Kutir, Tilak Bridge, N. Delhi 2 Interest accrued between 11.12.99 to BRS Rathaur 4,468.67/ 11.10.06 in SB A/c No. 01190008049 (New A/c No. 001067064026) with State Bank of India, M Block Market, GKII, New CC No. 12/2010 13 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Delhi.
3 Interest accrued between 31.3.99 to BRS Rathaur 14,763.61/ 30.9.06 in SB A/c No. 01SMP2485800 ( New A/c No.52110030059) with Standard Chartered Bank, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, ITO Delhi.
4 Interest accrued between 7.1.99 to BRS Rathaur 3,754.38/
5.8.06 in SB A/c No. 847 with
Punjab & Sind Bank, Bikrikar
Bhavan, New Delhi
5 Maturity of PPF A/c No. BRS Rathaur Rs. 12,18,008.51/
01P00/900414 with SBI M Block Initially the said a/c
Market, GKII, N. Delhi. was opened with
post office which
was subsequently
transferred to sBI
M. Block Market,
GKII ND. A/c was
closed on maturity
and total fundfs of
Rs. 12,18,008.51/
were transferred to
his SB A/c No.
00106770640261 on
19.4.2006.
6 Interest accrued from 1.4.04 to BRS Rathaur 6,174/
7.10.06 in SB A/c No.
002901053166 with ICICI Bank,
GKI, N. Delhi.
7 Pay and allowances of accused Sh. BRS Rathaur Rs. 2,83,147/
BRS Rathaur from 01.01.1985 to
29.02.1992.
CC No. 12/2010 14
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8 Net pay and allowances in the BRS Rathaur Rs. 25,174/
period 1.3.1992 to 10.7.1992
9 Net salary in the period 11.7.1992 to BRS Rathaur Rs. 1,33,529/
19.7.1994
10 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 39,864/
21.7.1994 to 1.1.1995. The
department could not provide
several particulars for the period
21.7.1994 to 31.8.1994 for this
period average salary for the month
of September has been taken into
account.
11 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 34,378/
2.1.1995 to 2.7.1995
12 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 46,962/
3.7.1995 to 5.12.1995
13 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 17,875/
6.12.1995 to 31.1.1996 is taken as
Rs. 17,875/. The department could
not provide salary particulars of this
period hence, average salary as
received in the month of March
2006 is taken into account.
14 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 1,36,728/
1.2.1996 to 28.2.1997.
15 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs.10,03,751/
1.3.1997 to 31.7.2002
16 Net Pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 15,886/
1.8.2002 to 26.8.2002 is taken as
Rs. 15,886/. The department could
not provide salary details for this
period hence, average salary has
been taken into account.
CC No. 12/2010 15
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17 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 74,414/
27.8.2002 to 23.12.2002.
18 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 68,879/
24.12.2002 to 8.4.2003.
19 Net salary in the period 9.4.2003 to BRS Rathaur Rs. 7,01,594/
20.11.2005
20 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 65,097/
1.12.2005 to 23.2.2006
21 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur
24.2.2006 to 30.6.2006 is taken as
Rs. 1.5 lakhs. The salary particulars
for the period have not been
provided by the department. The
average salary of rs. 30,000/ per
month and net salary Rs. 25,000/
on the basis of salary received in the
month of July 2006 is taken into
account.
22 Net pay & allowances in the period BRS Rathaur Rs. 68,271/
31.7.2006 to 11.10.2006.
23 Refund on Maturity of LIC Policy BRS Rathaur Rs. 68,440/
No. 113344853 DOC 12.12.2001
24 Redemption payment and income BRS Rathaur Rs.32,083/+Rs.
from interest received towards Tax 4,217 = Rs.36,300
Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Ltd
( Date of Maturity 26.2.2006,
Folio / Bond Holder No. 4137195)
25 Redemption payment and income BRS Rathaur Rs.21,761+Rs.
from interest received towards Tax 1897/= Rs.25,458/
Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Ltd
( Date of Maturity 23.1.2005 Folio /
Bond Holder No. 2307539)
CC No. 12/2010 16
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Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016
26 Redemption payment and income BRS Rathaur Rs.10,000/+
from interest received towards Tax Rs.1,020 + 1,050 +
Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Ltd 1,110/= Rs.13,180/
( Date of Maturity 22.3.2004,
Folio / Bond Holder No. 0600743)
27 Redemption payment and income BRS Rathaur Rs.10,985/ + 1,273
from interest received towards Tax + Rs. 1,100/ = Rs.
Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Ltd 13,358/
( Date of Maturity 24.3.2003,
Folio / Bond Holder No. 7253449)
28 Redemption payment and income BRS Rathaur Rs.10,664/+
from interest received towards Tax Rs.41/ + 586 +
Saving Bonds of ICICI Bank Ltd 1,250 + 1,250 =
( Date of Maturity 11.1.2002, Folio / Rs.13,791/
Bond Holder No. 4730165)
29 Total income from sale of old shares BRS Rathaur 3,46,210.68/
which were purchased/transferred
in the name of Sh. Rathaur and the
same were then sold after demat
through VT Securities Ltd between
April 2004 to March 2005
30 Profit earned by Sh. Braj Raj Singh BRS Rathaur 41,894.42/
Rathaur for the period from
1.4.2004 to 31.3.2005 for sale &
purchase of shares through VT
Securities Ltd.
31 Profit earned on sale & purchase of BRS Rathaur 1,17,411.53/
shares of different companies
through PEE ARR Securities Ltd
from 25.2.2005 to 11.10.2006.
32 Income earned by Sh. BRS Ratharu BRS Rathaur 1560/
on 14.5.2001 against investment of
Rs. 10,000/ in MEP.92 Scheme of
CC No. 12/2010 17
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Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016
UTI
33 Income earned by Sh. BRS Rathaur BRS Rathaur 2935.40/
on 29.5.2003 against investment in
US64 Scheme of UTI ( A/c No.
400M10441)
34 Income earned by Sh. BRS Rathaur BRS Rathaur 2935.40
on 29.5.2003 against investment in
US64 Scheme of UTI ( A/c No.
400M10442)
35 GPF part final withdrawal on BRS Rathaur 1,56,000/
8.6.2004
36 Redemption of Fidelity Equity BRS Rathaur 2,04,024.45
FundGrowth ( Folio No. 121336/33
date of transaction 23.8.06)
37 Redemption of HDFC Premier BRS Rathaur 74,513.44
Multi cap Fund Growth ( Folio No.
2071959, date of transaction:
23.8.2006
38 Redemption on maturity of SBI BRS Rathaur 65,594
mutual Fund ( Folio No. 5402895)
39 Redemption on maturity of 2 TATA BRS Rathaur 73,195.76
Mutual Fund (Folio No.
3251103593 )
40 Redemption on maturity of 2 TATA BRS Rathaur 74,469.01
Mutual Fund ( Folio No. 466337)
Total Rs. 54,41,349.72 ( Rs. 54,41,350/)
2.9 From the above figures of assets, expenditure and income the
calculation of disproportionate assets are given as under: 2.10 Disproportionate Assets Calculations Assets at the beginning of check period (A) = Rs. 15,391/ CC No. 12/2010 18 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Assets at the end of check period (B) = Rs. 1,10,96,410/ Total Assets at the end of check period = Rs. 1,10,96,410/ 15,391 ( BA ). = Rs. 1,10,81,019/ Expenditure during the check period ( C ) = Rs. 33,68,885/ Income during the check period ( D) = Rs. 54,41,350/ Likely Savings ( Income - Expenditure) Rs. 54,41,350 - Rs.33,68,885 = Rs. 20,72,465/ Disproportionate Assets (Total AssetsLikely Savings_ = 1,10,81,019 - Rs.20,72,465/ = Rs. 90,08,554/ DA% = DA x 100 Total Income DA% = Rs. 90,08,554/ X 100 Rs. 54,41,350/ DA% = 165.55%.
2.11 It is, therefore, alleged that accused BRS Rathaur while being employed as public servant during the period 1.1.85 to 11.10.06 was found in possession of assets to the tune of Rs. 90,08,554/ which were disproportionate to his known source of income for which he could not give satisfactory explanation and thus he was charge sheeted for offence U/s 13 ( 1 ) (e) r/w Section 13 ( 2 ) of PC Act 1988.
2.12 It was further alleged that accused Smt. Satyawati Singh @ Maa Devi Satya ( maternal aunt of BRS Rathaur ) during the above said period abetted the commission of offence U/s 13 ( 1 ) (e) r/w 13 ( 2 ) of PC Act, 1988 committed by CC No. 12/2010 19 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 BRS Rathaur in consequence of an abetment and thereby she had committed an offence punishable U/s 109 IPC read with section 13 ( 2 ) r/w 13 ( 1 ) (e) of PC Act, 1988. The competent authority had accorded sanction U/s 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 for prosecution of accused BRS Rathaur.
3. Charge 3.1 Thereafter, on 02.11.2011, my learned predecessor framed charge u/s 13 (1) (e) punishable u/s 13 (2) POC Act against accused B.R. S. Rathaur and u/s 109 IPC r/w 13(2) r/w 13(1) (e) of PC Act against accused Satyawati Singh @ Maa Devi Satya, to which they both pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.
3.2 During the course of trial, Smt. Satyawati Singh expired and the proceedings against her were abated by my learned predecessor vide his order dated 25.03.2013.
4. Prosecution Evidence 4.1 The prosecution in order to prove its case examined 68 witnesses.
4.2 PW1 is Sh. Om Parkash. He deposed that from October 2002 to September 2009 he was posted as Asst. Administrative Officer in LIC at Jeewan Parkash Building K. G. Marg, N. Delhi. Vide letter dated 18.3.2008 Ex. PW1/A he had provided status report in respect of LIC policies in the name of Sh. BRS Rathaur and Ms. Satyawati Devi to CBI. He sent the status report in respect of 08 LIC policies vide Ex. PW1/B. As per record the payments of these LIC policies were made by the policy holders through cheques and none of the payment was received in cash. He proved the four LIC policies in the Name of BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW1/C to Ex. PW1/F. Vide letter dt. 29.10.2008, Ex. PW1/G, this witness had provided the CC No. 12/2010 20 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 details of payment of Rs. 68,440/ to BRS Rathaur after maturity of LIC policy No. 113344853.
4.3 PW2 is Madan Mohan Goel. He deposed that from August 2006 to June 2007 he was working as Incharge Extension Counter in MCD Slum, Tilak Bridge Vikas Kutir, Central Bank of India. Vide seizure memo dt. 23.2.2007, Ex. PW2/A, he had provided the account to the investigating officer, opening form in the name of BRS RathaurEx. PW2/B, Specimen Signature Card of BRS Rathaur Ex. PW2/C, duplicate passbook of Saving Bank A/c No. 3145 in the name of BRS Rathaur opened on 5.6.03 Ex. PW2/D. He further deposed that as per duplicate passbook Ex.PW2/D as on 15.7.06, there was a net balance of Rs. 2,295.86 in this account.
4.4 PW3 is Sh. Kuldeep Kumar. He deposed that since October 2007, he had been working as Astt. Administrative Officer in LIC Branch Office, 126 Bharat Base Building, 1st Floor, 10 Daryaganj Delhi. Sh. Sudhir Gupta was working as Sr. Branch Manager his office and was posted with him. He identified the signatures of Dr. Sudhir Gupta on the letter dated 19.3.08 Ex. PW3/A written by Sh. Sudhir Gupta to Insp. Rajesh Chahal as he had seen him signing and writing during the course of his duties. Along with this letter photocopy of policy bond, premium history and status of policy in respect of policy number 112581769 in the name of BRS Rathaur, was sent to CBI. He also proved the computer generated copy of the LIC policy enclosed with letter Ex. PW1/A pertaining to his branch as Ex. PW3/B. He also proved the details of premium pertaining to said policy as Ex. PW3/C as well as the certified copy of the LIC policy as Ex. PW3/D. He further deposed that LIC policy Ex.PW3/B, in the name of BRS Rathaur, for an amount of Rs.
CC No. 12/2010 21(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 1,20,000/ was commenced on 28.3.99 and till 11.10.96, 09 installments for a total amount of Rs.85,293/ as mentioned in policy Ex. PW3/C had been paid.
4.5 PW4 is Sh. D. Ganesh. He deposed that in the year 2007 he was posted as Manager/ Sr. Manager 3 in Infotech Ltd. Vide letter dt. 3.5.07, Ex. PW4/A, he had sent the documents /annexures as mentioned in the said letter. The documents sent through letter Ex. PW4/A had been admitted by the accused during the examination of this witness and were exhibited as Ex. P1 to P10.
4.6 PW5 is Sh. Rajender Pal Singh Officer Punjab & Sind Bank, Bikrikar Bhawan, I. P. Estate, N. Delhi. He deposed that BRS Rathaur had opened a saving bank account in his branch on 12.11.97 and was allotted account no.
847. PW5 was instructed by Sr. Manager Sh. D. K. Kansal to hand over the requisite documents to CBI. He identified the letter Ex. PW5/A, written by Sh. D. K. Kansal to Sh. Rajesh Chahal, Inspector CBI. He further deposed that along with this letter original account opening form and its certified copy were also submitted to CBI. He proved the original account opening form and its certified copy as Ex. PW5/B (colly). On the instruction of Sr. Manager, he had generated statement of account of account No. 847 for the period 7.1.99 to 3.2.07, bearing his signatures and official seal at point A, which is Ex. PW5/C. As per this statement as on 5.9.2006 there was a balance of Rs. 3,754,38 in the aforesaid account of BRS Rathaur and an amount of Rs.11,985/ had accrued as interest in this account between 7.1.99 to 5.8.06. He had also proved the letter dt. 5.2.2008 written by Sh. S. Surjit Singh Luthra Sr. Manager to Insp. Rajesh Chahal of CBI as Ex. PW5/D. Along this letter Ex. PW5/D five original cheques dated 27.5.03 for an amount of Rs. 53402, dated 29.4.04 for an amount of Rs. 53402, dated 2.5.2002 for an amount of rs. 53402/, dated 1.5.2001 for CC No. 12/2010 22 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 an amount of rs. 53402 and dated 11.12.2001 for an amount of rs. 1,50,000/, all in favour of LIC of India were handed over to CBI. Another cheque dt. 6.3.2006 for an amount of Rs. 50,000/ in favour of Reliance Equity Fund was also handed over to CBI. All these cheques were from the account No. 847 of Sh. BRS Rathaur and relevant entries in this respect have been reflected in statement of account Ex. PW5/B. 4.7 PW6 is Sh. Manoj Dhyani. He proved the seizure memo dt. 10.5.2007 as Ex. PW6/A. Vide this seizure memo the documents pertaining to the salary record of BRS Rathaur from 27.8.02 to 31.8.2002, for September, October and November and from 1.12.2002 to 23.12.2002 were handed over to CBI. The documents submitted to CBI through seizure memo Ex. PW6/A were collectively exhibited as Ex. PW6/B. This witness had also proved the letter dated 16.3.2007 written to SP CBI by identifying the signatures of Sh. Anil Kumar Dy. Chief Accountant, Shahdara South Zone at point A on this letter. Letter is Ex. PW6/C. 4.8 PW7 is Sh. Rakesh Kumar. He proved the letter dated 5.5.2008, Ex.PW7/A. Vide this letter he had sent to the CBI the attested true copies of pay bill registers of the office of Asst. Commissioner, Civil Line Zone, MCD for the period 16.12.2003 to 30.11.2005, in respect of pay and allowances of Sh. BRS Rathaur. He had also proved the copies of salary record of BRS Rathaur duly attested by Sh. R. L. Pruthi, Asst. Commissioner MCD Civil Line, Zone as Ex. PW7/B, copy of statement of account containing details of total salary, total deductions, net paid salary for the period 16.12.2003 to November 2005 as Ex. PW7/C. He also deposed as per the GPF Passbook Sh. BRS Rathaur had withdrawn Rs. 1,56,000/ from his GPF A/c No. 6676 on 8.6.2004.
CC No. 12/2010 23(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 4.9 PW8 is Sh. Saurabh Srivastava. He deposed that he was working as Executive ( Operations), Franklin Templetion Asset Management ( India) Pvt Ltd. He further deposed that on the instructions of Smt. Rupali Arora he had handed over certain documents to CBI vide letter Ex. PW8/A. He had identified the signatures of Smt. Rupali Arora on the letter Ex. PW8/A as he had seen her signatures during the course of his working. He also proved the application form of investor BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW8/B and his account statement as Ex. PW8/C. As per account statement Ex. PW8/C on 18.5.2006 an amount of Rs. One lac was invested by way of cheque by Sh. BRS Rathaur for purchase of mutual funds. On 16.3.2007, on the instructions of BRS Rathaur, the amount invested in mutual fund was switched to another scheme.
4.10 PW9 is Sh. Ramesh Chand. He deposed that he was working as Assistant in National Insurance Co. Ltd, Direct Agent Branch, 12, Community Centre, East of Kailash, New Delhi. He further deposed that on the instruction of Sr. Branch Manager, Mr. U. C. Rastogi, he had gone to CBI office and handed over certain documents to CBI vide letter Ex. PW9/A. He identified the signature of Sh. U. C. Rastogi on this letter as he had seen his signatures during the course of his work. He also proved the medi claim policy of Sh. BRS Rathaur and receipts of payments running into 10 sheets as had been attested by Sh. U. C. Rastogi as Ex.PW9/B ( colly).
4.11 PW10 is Sh. Ram Ugrah. He deposed that he was working as Senior Clerk ( stores) in Northern Railways Head Quarter, Baroda House, N. Delhi. On 11.10.2006 he accompanied the CBI team for the search of a house of one BRS Rathaur at Greater Kailash, N. Delhi. He further deposed that CBI officer Sh. D. K. CC No. 12/2010 24 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Barik knocked the door of the said house and on opening of the door, he gave his introduction to the person known as Mr. Rathaur. After introduction the CBI officers started search of the said house in his presence. He did not remember the details of the recoveries made during the said search. However, a search list was prepared and he signed the same. He identified his signatures at point A on the search list Ex. PW10/A. He also identified his signatures at point A on observation memo Ex. PW10/B. He further deposed that he signed Ex. PW10A and B along with other witnesses at the spot.
4.12 PW11 is Smt. Varsha R. Nair, Asst. Valuation Officer, Income Tax Department, Customs and Central Excise Building, Baishali Ground, Meerut UP. She deposed that on 27.2.2008, she along with Sh. Raj Kumar and Sh. Satish Kumar JE CPWD posted in valuation department of income tax, had visited Greater Noida UP for valuation of a property. She did not remember the exact address of that property. She further deposed that after visiting the site she prepared the valuation report and submitted it to her Sr. Valuation Officer, who reviewed it. After review by the Valuation Officer, the valuation report Ex. PW11/B was sent to CBI vide her covering letter Ex. PW11/A bearing her signatures at point A. As per report Ex. PW11/B the total cost of construction of H. No. A77, Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida, UP was Rs. 29,70,600/.
4.13 PW12 is Sh. Ram Singh Paul. He deposed that he was working as Manager in Globe Capital Market Ltd, 804 Ansal Bhawan, 16, KG Marg, N. Delhi since 1998. This company deals in demat accounts of shares. He further deposed that vide letter 20.5.2007, Ex.PW12/A, of Sh. Deepak Sadhwani, Compliance Officer, he handed over to CBI, certain documents related to the Demat Account of CC No. 12/2010 25 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 BRS Rathaur. He identified the signatures of Sh. Deepak Sadwani on this letter at point A as he had seen Mr. Deepak Sadwani signing and writing in ordinary course of his duties. The documents sent along with this letter are Ex. PW12/B ( colly). These included Client Master List & Transaction statement from the period 31.7.2004 to 20.3.2007 which contained details of shares transaction of Sh. BRS Rathaur.
4.14 PW13 is Sh. V. P. Mittal. He deposed that he had worked with V. T. Securities Ltd, 701 Rohit House, 3 Tolstoy Marg, N. Delhi from 1996 to 2005. He further deposed that vide his letter dated 7.5.2008, Ex.PW13/A, he handed over to CBI transactions/ statement of account of Sh. BRS Rathaur which is Ex. PW13/B. 4.15 PW14 is Sh. Sam Vijay Anand. He deposed that in the year 2008 he was working as Officer in Currency Chest of Corporation Bank, Greater Kailash Branch. Mr. B. B. Tejappa was AGM of his bank and he identified the signature of Sh. B. B. Tejrappa on the letter dt. 30.1.2008. Vide this letter certified true copy of statement of account of BRS Rathaur for the period 6.5.2005 to 11.8.2006 was sent to CBI. The letter is Ex. PW14/A. The certified copy of statement of account is Ex. PW14/B. He further deposed that from this account Sh. BRS Ratuaur had issued two cheques in favour of LIC of India and Reliance Equity Fund and he proved these cheques as Ex. PW14/C and Ex. PW14/D respectively.
4.16 PW15 is Sh. Adesh Kumar Joshi. He deposed that in the year 2007 he was posted as Chief Manager in SBI, GKII Branch New Delhi. As per requisition of CBI he had furnished account opening form of BRS Rathaur, Ex.PW15/B, in respect of SB A/c No. 8049 and Statement of account, Ex. PW15/C. CC No. 12/2010 26 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 On 11.6.2010, there was a credit balance of Rs. 1,10,582.65 in the above said account. He had also provided statement of account of PPF Account No. 01P00/900414 of Sh. BRS Rathaur which is Ex. PW15/D. All these documents were sent to the CBI by this witness through letter Ex. PW15/A. 4.17 PW16 is Ms. Rupali Arora. She deposed in or around the year 200607 she was working as Branch Head ( Customer Service ) of Franklin Templeton Asset Management. She further deposed that Smt. Meera Chawla was her superior and was working as Regional Manager. She identified the signature of Smt. Meera Chawla on the letter dt 19.3.2007 which is Ex. PW16/A. She also proved the application for account opening of Sh. BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW16/B. 4.18 PW17 is Sh. Yash Pal Ahuja. He deposed that during the period March 2004 to July 2009 he was working as Salesman in Mahavira Trading Company. The company was dealing in electrical equipments. He along with two other employees namely Sh. Shanker and Sh. Mahender used to issue bills to the customers for the purchases made from that company. He proved the original bill No. 2790 dated 2.2.2005 as Ex. PW17/A. It was bearing signatures of Sh. Shanker which he identified as he had seen him signing and writing during the course of his duty. Vide this bill Usha Oil Filled Radiator for Rs. 4,250/ was purchased by making the payment in cash. He further deposed that this bill was handed over by him to CBI vide letter Ex. PW17/B. 4.19 PW18 is Sh. Mohd Imran. He deposed that he was working in Standard Chartered Bank and during the period 2006 to 2011 he was posted as Sr. Officer in Bahadur Shah Zafar branch of the bank. He further deposed that he can CC No. 12/2010 27 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 identify the signatures of Ms. Neeru D. Samson who was working as Asst. Manager in this branch of the bank as he had seen her writing and signing in ordinary course of his duties. He further deposed that as per letter dated 7.2.2008 Ex. PW18/A bearing signatures of Ms. Neeru D. Sanson at point A, three cash deposit slips and one cheque were handed over by him to Insp. CBI. He proved the three cash deposit receipts and cheque dated 18.8.2006 as Ex. PW18/B1 to B4. Vide Ex. PW18/B1 to B4 the amounts as mentioned therein had been deposited in the joint account No. 52110030059 of Ms. Manjula Rathaur/ Brij Raj Singh Rathaur.
4.20 PW19 is Sh. Sunil Kumar Sharma. He deposed that between February 2008 to December 2009 he was posted as Asst. Account Officer, Head Quarter, Slum & JJ Department, MCD, Vikas Kutir, IP Estate, N . Delhi. He deposed that he can identify the signature of Sh. N. K. Gupta Account Officer ( HQ) as he had worked under him and seen his signatures on several documents /correspondence while working under him. He proved letter dated 28.4.2008, Ex.PW19/A, bearing signature of Sh. N. K. Gupta, Account Officer. Vide this letter certified copy of extract of Pay Bill Register with respect to the total salary, deductions and net gross salary of Sh. BRS Rathaur, DANICS officer who was previously posted as Dy. Commissioner, MCD on deputation basis was submitted to CBI.
4.21 PW20 is Sh. Mukesh Pal Verma. He is a witness from M/s. Pee Aar Securities. His testimony shall be considered at a later stage as and when required.
4.22 PW21 is Sh. Vijay Malhotra . He deposed that from the year 2006 to 2010 he was posted as Section Officer ( FundsI) Prime Minister's Office, South CC No. 12/2010 28 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Block, N. Delhi. He proved letter dated 16.6.2008 as Ex. PW21/A. Vide this letter which was signed by his Asst. Amit Kumar, on his behalf, the information regarding contribution made by BRS Rathaur In Prima Minister's Relief Fund was sent to SP CBI. He further deposed that along with this letter, copy of letter received from Sh. Rakesh Mehra, IAS, Commissioner MCD was also sent to CBI which is Ex. PW2/B. As per Ex. PW21/A and Ex.PW21/B BRS Rathaur contributed Rs. 25,000/ in Prime Minister's Relief Fund vide cheque no. 393504 dated 24.1.2005.
4.23 PW22 is Sh. Rajender Prasad. He deposed that during the period 2008 He was working as Drawing and Disbursing Officer, Indian Institute of Human Behavior and Allied Sciences ( IHBAS), Dilshad Garden, Delhi. He further deposed that on the requisition of CBI, the salary record of BRS Rathaur for the period 11.7.92 to 19.7.94 was submitted to CBI vide forwarding letter dt. 9.7.2008 Ex. PW22/A . Along with this letter salary record of BRS Rathaur running into three pages was also sent to CBI. The salary record is Ex. PW22/B. 4.24 PW23 is Sh. Pradeep Bhatia. He deposed that during the year 2008 he was working as Sr. Executive in UTI Technology Services, 174175, Rajendra Place, N. Delhi. This organization was previously known as UTI Technology Services Pvt Ltd. He further deposed that on the requisition of CBI, his Regional Manager Sh. Pradeep Shenoy vide letter dt. 27.5.2008, Ex. PW23/A, had sent to CBI information regarding investment made in their company by BRS Rathaur.
4.25 PW24 is Sh. Ashutosh Kumar. He deposed that approximately from July 2007 to 2009 he was posted as Additional Secretary ( Vigilance), GNCT of Delhi Secretariat, IP Estate New Delhi. He further deposed that vide letter Ex.
CC No. 12/2010 29(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 PW24/A he had sent to CBI, attested copy of PBR in GAR 17 for March 1997 to July 2002, record maintained in Trade & Taxes Department, Original Service Book, Duly filed in bio data in respect of BRS Rathaur. He identified the service book of BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW24/B. 4.26 PW25 is Sh.R. K. Bansal. He deposed that from the year 2006 to 2009 he was on deputation and was working as Drawing and Disbursing Officer in State Council of Education, Research & Training ( SCERT) , New Delhi. Sh. B. N. Bajpayi was Director in SCERT and he can identify the signature of Sh. B. N. Bajpayi as he had seen his signatures in ordinary course of his duties. He further deposed that vide letter dated 15.7.08, Ex. PW25/A, Sh. B. N. Bajpayi had sent to CBI Copy of original Pay Bill Register from 31.7.06 to 27.3.2008 and copy of bio data of BRS Rathaur. He certified the relevant three pages of Pay Bill Register of BRS Rathaur for the period 31.7.06 to 27.3.2008 and proved the same as Ex. PW25/B1 to B3. He also proved the photo copy of Bio Data of Sh. BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW25/C. 4.27 PW26 is Sh. Ramji Lal. He deposed that around 2008 to 2011 He was working as Account Officer in Lok Nayak Jai Parkash Hospital, GNCT. He further deposed that vide letter dated 16.7.2008 Ex. PW26/A he had submitted the attested PBR for the period 199091 and 199192 of Sh. BRS Rathaur Dy. Medical Superintendent ( Admn), to CBI. He proved the relevant copies of PBR as Ex. PW26/B1 and Ex. PW26/B2.
4.28 PW27 is Sh. Ashok Kumar. He deposed that in the year 2008 He was posted as Assistant Manager in SBI, GK II, N. Delhi. Sh. R. K. S. Rawat was the CC No. 12/2010 30 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Dy. Manager in the said branch of SBI at that time and he can identify the signatures of Sh. R. K. S. Rawat as he had seen their signatures in ordinary course of his duties. He further deposed that vide letter dt. 5.5.2008, Ex.PW27/A, bearing the signature of Sh. R. K. S. Rawat, certain documents were handed over by him to the IO. The documents are Cheque dt. 21.4.2003 drawn on SBI, GK II in favour of BRS Rathaur, Credit voucher dt. 11.6.04, Cheque dt. 15.7.2004 for an amount of Rs.1,85,000 drawn on SBI GK II issued from the account of BRS Rathaur, Cheque dated 29.1.2006 for an amount of Rs. 1,00,000 drawn on SBI GK II from the account of BRS Rathaur, Transfer voucher dated 19.4.2006 for transfer of amount of Rs.12,18,008,51 for transfer of this amount from the PPF Account of BRS Rathaur to his SB account in SBI GK II, N.Delhi, cheque dated 20.4.2006 drawn on SBI, GK II from the SB account of BRS Rathaur, cheque dt 20.4.2006 drawn on SBI, GK II from the SB account of BRS Rathaur, cheque dated 26.4.2006 drawn on SBI GK II from the saving bank account of BRS Rathaur, cheque dt. 1.5.2006 drawn on SBI GK II from the SB account of BRS Rathaur, cheque dated 6.6.2006 drawn on SBI, GK II from the SB account of BRS Rathaur, cheque dated 7.9.2006 drawn on SBI GK II from the SB account of BRS Rathaur, credit voucher dt 30.8.2006 for deposit of Rs. 65,594 in the account of BRS Rathaur, credit voucher dt 26.8.2006 for deposit of Rs.62,591.55 in the account of BRS Rathaur, certified copy of statement of account of PPF account of BRS Rathaur for the period from 3.2.94 to 16.4.2005. He proved the above documents as Ex. PW27/B1 to B14.
4.29 PW28 is Sh. Ajay Kumar Tiwari. He deposed that in the year 2007 he was posted as officer in ICICI Bank, W57, GKI, New Delhi. He further deposed that vide letter dated 22.3.2007, Ex. PW28/A, he had sent to CBI the certified copy CC No. 12/2010 31 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 of statement of account of saving bank account no. 002901053166 of BRS Rathaur. The statement of account is Ex. PW28/B. 4.30 PW29 is Sh. Bhushan Narula. He deposed that in the year 2007 He was posted as Manager ( Customer Care ) Dr. Lal Path Labs Pvt Ltd, 54, Hanuman Road, N. Delhi. He further deposed that vide seizure memo, Ex. PW29/A, dated 22.3.2007 a cash receipt in two sheets Ex. PW29/A1 was seized by the IO. As per this cash memo Rs. 3030 was paid to this Lab by BRS Rathaur for conducting of pathological test.
4.31 PW30 is Sh. Deepal Mullick. He deposed that in the year 2008 He was posted as Vice President HDFC Bank, Asset Management Co, Tolstoy Marg, N. Delhi. He further deposed that vide letter dated 29.7.2008, Ex. PW30/A, he had submitted to CBI the information regarding investment by BRS Rathaur in HDFC Mutual Fund. The statements of investment made by BRS Rathaur running into two sheets sent along with letter Ex. PW30/A are Ex. PW30/A1 and A2 respectively. As per this Ex.PW30/A and Ex.PW30/A1, as on 6.4.2005, an amount of Rs.49,000/ was invested by Sh. BRS Rathaur in HDFC Premier Multi Cap Scheme and against this investment, a total amount of Rs. 74,513.44/ was paid to BRS Rathaur on 23.8.2006. He also proved the photo copy of application form of BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW30/A3.
4.32 PW31 is Sh. R. Chandrasekaran. He deposed that in the year 2008 he was working as Investor Relation Officer in Kodak Mahindra Mutual Fund Mumbai. He further deposed that vide letter 18.3.2008, Ex. PW31/A, he had submitted to the IO copy of investor application form of Sh. BRS Rathaur for Kotak CC No. 12/2010 32 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Mid Cap Fund and statement of account Ex.PW31/B and Ex.PW31/C . As per Ex. PW31/B and C, an amount of rs. 49,000/ was invested by BRS Rathaur in Kotak Mid Cap Fund (Growth) on 24.2.2005 and against this investment a total payment of Rs. 79,490.09 was made to BRS Rathaur.
4.33 PW32 is Sh. Amar Nath Anand. He deposed that in the year 2007 he was posted as Assistant Manager in Standard Chartered Bank, Express Building Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, ITO, N. Delhi. Vide production cum seizure memo dt 19.3.2007, Ex. PW32/A, he had handed over to CBI certain documents in original. The letter dated 12.3.2007 through which the documents were submitted is Ex.PW32/B. The account opening form in original, through which a saving bank account was opened on 23.7.1993 by Sh. BRS Rathaur in ANZ Grindlays Bank, (which was later on merged with Standard Chartered Bank) is Ex. PW32/C. The specimen signature dt. 23.7.1993 is Ex. PW32/D. The account holder had submitted photo copy of passport and photo copy of PAN Card at the time of opening of account. These are Ex. PW32/E and PW32/F. On 16.2.94, at the request of account holder, the account was converted into joint account in the names of BRS Rathaur and Manjula Rathaur. The request leter is Ex. PW32/G. On the basis of the request letter, fresh account opening form dated 16.2.94, Ex.PW32/H, was filled by the account holders. He had also proved the certified copy of statement of account from 31.3.97 to 20.12.2006 vide Ex. PW32/K1 to K47.
4.34 PW33 is Sh. Sonu Ahuja. He deposed that he was a partner in M/s Ahuja Sons, Khan Market since 2002. He stated that vide leter dated 2.4.2007, Ex.PW33/A, he had handed over to CBI attested photocopy of duplicate bill no. 47216 dt 16.3.2005 Ex. PW33/C. He further deposed that original bill No. 47216, CC No. 12/2010 33 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Ex.PW33/B, was in his hand writing and had his signatures at point A. The bill was for cash and had not been issued in anyone's name. As per bill Ex. PW33/B one cordless telephone and a push button phone with caller ID were sold for a sum of rs. 3500/. He could not say who had purchased the telephone and who had made the payment.
4.35 PW34 is Sh. Ved Prakash Gupta. He deposed that he was Director of M/s PEE AAR Securities Ltd. This company was a member of National Stock Exchange and dealt in sale purchase of share and securities on behalf of its clients. He further deposed that vide letter Ex. PW20/A he had provided to CBI documents relating to the account as maintained by his company of BRS Rathaur. The statement of account Ex.PW20/B reflected the transaction of sale Purchase of shares and also payments received and made for the period 1.3.2005 to 4.10.2006. The statement of account dt. 7.4.2007, Ex.PW20/B1, reflecting the shares as on 11.10.2006 is in the hand writing of BRS Rathaur. Statement Ex. PW20/B2 reflected the payment received from and made to BRS Rathaur by M/s PEE AAR Securities between 14.3.2005 to 4.10.2006. Statement Ex. PW20/D reflected the shares worth Rs. 5,55,872.46 as had been purchased by BRS Rathaur.
4.36 PW35 is Sh. Harender Singh. He deposed that since 2005 he was working as Assistant Account Officer in Department of Trade and Taxes, earlier known as Sales Tax Department. He stated that vide letter dated 16.7.2008, Ex.PW35/A, Sh. Umesh Kumar Tyagi, Joint Commissioner (Admn) had sent to CBI documents relating to pay and allowances of BRS Rathaur wef 16.5.85 to 31.12.89, 1.3.97 to 26.6.2000 and 27.6.2000 to 22.7.2002. The details of pay & allowances for the period 16.5.85 are Ex. PW35/B1 to B5 and for the period 1.3.97 to 22.7.2002, CC No. 12/2010 34 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 are Ex. PW35/C1 to C6. He had also proved the three GPF passbooks of BRS Rathaur No. D/Admn./6676 as Ex. PW35/D1 to D3.
4.37 PW36 is Sh. C. D. Madhur. He deposed that in February 2002 he was working in Ministry of Mines, Shastri Bhawan New Delhi. He further deposed that vide letter dated 17.7.2008 Ex. PW36/A he had sent to CBI the details of pay & allowances drawn by BRS Rathaur from 19.9.91 to 10.7.92. Along with letter Ex.PW36/A, a sheet containing pay & allowances drawn by by BRS Rathaur was also sent to CBI. The sheet is Ex. PW36/B. 4.38 PW37 is Sh. Guarcharan Singh. He deposed that he was working as officer in PNB and since 2011 had been posted in Khanpur Branch of PNB. Prior to that, he was posted in East of Kailash Branch of the bank as Account in Charge. After seeing the document D87, this witness stated that it was the statement of account in respect of A/c No. 7505 in the name of Sh. C. S. Rahaur and Smt. Rajeshwari Devi from November 1994 to March 1999 (running into two sheets), and from April 2001 to 11.8.2008 (running into two sheets). All the four pages of statement of account bear the stamp of the bank. However, he did not remember whether he handed over these documents to anyone. He further states that during the last 45 years he had visited the CBI office once but he did not remember whether he had visited the CBI office in context of this case or any other case.
4.39 PW38 is Sh. Ram Pal Soni. He deposed that in the year 2007 he was posted as Dy. Manager in East Kailash Branch of Punjab National Bank and was looking after the saving and current accounts. He proved the statement of account of account No. 7505 in the name of C. S. Rathaur and Smt. Rajeshwari Devi for the CC No. 12/2010 35 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 period 28.11.94 to 17.3.99 as Ex. PW38/A. He further deposed that he had calculated the interest credited in this account vide calculation sheet Ex. PW38/B. He had visited CBI office in the year 2007 and handed over original account opening form, Ex. PW38/C. As per this form Sh. BRS Rathaur was the authorized signatory of this account. He had also proved the statement of the aforesaid account No. 7505 from 7.5.99 to 10.3.2001 , 3.8.2001 to 6.9.2005 and from 12.11.2005 to 4.9.2006 as Ex. PW38/D1 to D3.
4.40 PW39 is Sh. Satish Kumar Chouhan. He deposed that he was working as Jr. Engineer in MCD till 200809 and thereafter he left the service. He further deposed that his father had purchased a Maruti Zen Car for about Rs. 3.50 lacs from the showroom in his own name. The car was financed by City Bank. The car was badly damaged in an accident and it was subsequently sold to Ms. Seema Sharma for a consideration of rs. 50,000/. Ms. Seems Sharma was a disciple of Mata Devi Satyawati like him. He further deposed that he knew accused BRS Rathaur from the day he became disciple of Mata Devi Satyawati as BRS Rathaur was her disciple prior to him. He knew that BRS Rathaur was in civil services. He further deposed that BRS Rathar donated plot No. A77, Alpha1, Greater Noida to Mata Devi Satyawati for construction of Yog Sansthan and Mandir through transfer cum gift deed, Ex.PW39/A. This gift deed was executed in his presence and had his signatures on it at point A as one of the witnesses. The signatures of BRS Rathaur is at point B and that of Mata Devi Satyawati at point C. A temple was constructed on this plot. In the construction, a major contribution was made by Sh. C. S. Rathaur, father of BRS Rathaur in the construction and small contributions were made by other disciples. He further deposed that construction was carried out under his CC No. 12/2010 36 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 supervision as he happened to be a civil engineer. BRS Rathaur was occasional visitor and construction was not carried out under the supervision of BRS Rathaur. He also deposed that the payments for building material etc used to be made by C. S. Rathaur on his recommendation. Vide Ex.PW39/B, Mata Devi Satyawati had executed power of attorney in favour of BRS Rathaur for day to day administrative work of Yog Sansthan.
4.41 PW40 is Sh. Sanjay Khanna. He deposed that since February 2007 to July 2011 he was working as UDC in Accounts Branch in the Department of Social Welfare, Govt of NCT of Delhi. He stated that letter dated 1.9.2008 did not bear his signature. This letter had been signed by Ms. Rekha Rani Sharma, Sr. Suptd (Admn ). He had neither taken this letter to CBI office nor delivered the same in the CBI office. This letter was already there when he visited the CBI office on 4.11.2008. He was shown this letter by CBI officer and after speaking to Ms. Rekha Rani Sharma and after her confirmation, he confirmed to the CBI that letter bore the signature of Ms. Rekha Rani Sharma. He further stated that he had taken two PBR relating to the period 1.1.90 to 10.4.90 twith him to CBI office. He had calculated the salary drawn by accused BRS Rathaur. The gross salary of BRS Rathaur from 1.1.90 to 10.4.90 was Rs. 10,887 and the net salary was Rs. 8261/.
4.42 PW41 is Sh. S. Venkatachalam. He deposed that since August 2010 he was working as General Manager in Karvi Computer Shares Pvt Ltd. He further deposed that vide letter dt. 14.8.2008 Ex. PW41/A, running into three pages, he had provided to CBI transfer and investment details of Rajeshwari Devi Rathaur and BRS Rathaur, portfolio No. 37850781. Original transfer deeds, demat request form along with the paid instruments of dividends were also enclosed with the said letter.
CC No. 12/2010 37(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Transfer Deeds, Demat transfer requests, details of investment and statement of dividend payment with original dividend instruments are Ex. PW41/B1 to B15.
4.43 PW42 is Smt. Meena Bhargava. She deposed that in the year 2008 she was posted as Sr. Manager ( Planning) in Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority. She further deposed that on the instructions of her superior officers she had handed over to CBI the file Ex.PW41A1. It was in respect of property No. A77, Sector AlphaI, Greater Noida UP and was seized vide memo Ex. PW41/A. She had dealt with this file when the building plan in respect of this property was submitted for sanction. Lease deed in the name of BRS Rathaur and indemnity bond executed by BRS Rathaur had been annexed with the request letter. Receipt of Rs.480/ towards the requisite charges had also been furnished. The request was processed and after the approval of General Manager ( Planning) Ms. Rekha Deywani, dt 24.9.1998, sanction letter was issued in the name of BRS Rathaur. The proceedings of the approval of sanction plan was recorded on page no. 1 & 2 of the noting sheet. She proved the proceedings as Ex. PW42/B and sanction letter as Ex. PW42/C. 4.44 PW43 is Sh. Sandeep Kumar. He deposed that he had been working in Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority since 2002 and in 2005, he was posted as Manager ( Property) and he was also handed over additional charge of Yamuna Express Authority in 2009. Vide letter dt. 30.4.2008, Ex. PW43/A, he had handed over to CBI, one original file in respect of plot No. A77, Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida, UP in the name of Sh. BRS Rathaur and photo copy of file in respect of plot no. C292, Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida, UP. The file in respect of Plot No. A77 is Ex. PW43/B. The plot was allotted to BRS Rathaur on 18.8.92 at a cost of Rs. 1,70,000/. Initially the plot allotted was for 200 mtrs. However, after CC No. 12/2010 38 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 demarcation etc it comes to 280 sq. mtrs. Vide letter dated 15.7.95 additional demand of rs. 68000/ for additional 80 sq.mtrs, Rs. 6800 towards lease rent and Rs. 9375/ towards stamp duty was raised. As per payment intimation letter dated 4.6.2001 an amount of rs. 17000/ against registration money, Rs. 34000/ against allotment, 08 installments of Rs. 14,875/ each towards cost of the plot, Rs. 160 as interest towards delayed payment of rs. 23,800/ towards lease rent, Rs. 100 towards document charges, Rs. 480 for plan process, Rs. 1590 and Rs. 5040 towards water and sewer charges were deposited by BRS Rathaur. The property was lateron transferred in the name of Smt. Satyawati Singh vide transfer order dated 14.6.2001.
4.45 PW44 is Sh. Umed Singh. He deposed that he was working MCD since 1974 as head clerk in the account department of City Zone MCD. He further deposed that in the year 2008 certain documents were handed over to him by Asst. Chief Account Officer which he handed over to CBI.
4.46 PW45 is Sh. B. S. Bindra. He deposed that during July 2006 to 2008 he was posted as PA to Sh. BRS Rathaur Secretary SCERT New Delhi. He further deposed that about 45 years ago he was called by CBI officer in his office where he was shown certain documents/ title deeds bearing the signatures of BRS Rathaur. He told to CBI that the title deeds were not signed by BRS Rathaur in his presence but the signatures on them appeared to be of BRS Rathaur. This witness was shown some documents in file Ex. PW42/A1. After seeing the documents he states that signatures on various documents in this file appeared to be that of BRS Rathaur. He further deposed that signatures on GPA Ex. PW19/DA appeared to be that of BRS Rathaur.
CC No. 12/2010 39(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 4.47 PW46 is Sh. Ashok Gupta. He deposed that he was working in MCD since December 1990. He further deposed that vide letter Ex. PW46/A, he had handed over salary details of BRS Rathaur for the period from September 1994 to 1.1.95 and from 24.12.2002 to 8.4.2003. The details given were on the basis of office record Ex. PW46/A1 to A15.
4.48 PW47 is Sh. Anand Kumar. He deposed that he was a professor in the School of Social Sciences, Centre for Study of Social Systems. Shree Anami Sewashram was a religious and spiritual institution. Smt. Satyawati Devi who was spiritually very enlightened was the head of this institution. He was one of the trustees of this institution. He further deposed that BRS Rathaur is his youngest brother in law and was associated with the trust as a practicing Hindu and spiritual person. The financial aspect of the trust in its day to day functioning was met by the contributions made by the large number of devotees across the country. No bank account was maintained by trust and the trust did not file any income tax return. The trust runs a temple in Noida. He occasionally made modest contributions in the trust. He did not know about the financial contributions made by BRS Rathaur. However, Sh. BRS Rathaur had donated a piece of land in Noida to Satyawati Devi. He further deposed that he was one of the witness to the power of attorney Ex. PW39/B. He was also one of the witness to the will dated 19.4.05, Ex.PW47/A, executed by Smt. Satyawati Devi.
4.49 PW48 is Sh. B. P. S Nagar. He deposed that he was an advocate by profession and practicing in the office of Sub Registrar, Greater Noida, UP. He also prepared sale deed, gift deed, GPA etc. He further deposed that transfer cum gift deed Ex. PW39/A, dt. 12.7.2001, was drafted by him. He had also attested the CC No. 12/2010 40 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 photographs of donor and the donee on the gift deed. He had also signed the deed at point A as the person who had drafted it. An amount of Rs. 2,37,500/ was paid as stamp duty.
4.50 PW49 is Sh. Manoj Patil. He deposed that he was working in M/s Datamatics Financial Services Ltd and in the year 2009 he was posted as Officer ( R&D) and was looking after investigation and correspondence in legal matters. Vide letter Ex. PW49/A, he had furnished to CBI investment details of BRS Rathaur. The details furnished by him are in the form of Annexure A which is share transfer form for 33 shares of SBI and Annexure B is the Demat Form received by the company of PW49. The same are Ex. PW49/B1 and B2.
4.51 PW50 is Sh. Prashant Gaurav. He deposed that in March 2007 he was posted as Asst Manager in Reliance Communication Ltd. The call details used to be provided to the security agencies on the request of Investigating Officers. Vide letter dt. 15.3.07, Ex. PW50/A, he had provided to CBI, Customer Application Form along with documents regarding proof of identity, proof of address, initial payments details which were collectively Ex. PW50/B. He also deposed that telephone connection was activated on 12.12.2003. Initially No. 33438460 was allotted which was later on converted into 9350142068 when the numbers were converted to 10 digits numbers.
4.52 PW51 is Sh. R. S. Rana. He is a witness from CFSL. He deposed that he had examined the documents and specimen signatures pertaining to accused BRS Rathaur and Maa Satya Devi and filed his report Ex.PW51/A. 4.53 PW 52 is Sh. Ram Dulare. He deposed that in the year 2009 he was CC No. 12/2010 41 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 posted as Administrative Officer in the Collectorate Lakhimpur Khiri, UP. He further deposed that vide letter Ex. PW52/A was having his signatures at point A. He had provided the copies of Pay Bill Register from February 1984 to June 1984 in respect of BRS Rathaur the then SDM Lakhimpur along with summary of the payments made to Sh. BRS Rathaur during that period on account of salary and other allowances. The summary of payment is Ex. PW52/B and the copies of PBR are Ex. PW52/C1 to C4.
4.54 PW53 is Sh. Jeevan Chand Joshi. He deposed that in June 2009 he was posted as Joint Director (Finance) Uttrakhand Academy of Administration, Nanital. He was one of the Faculty Members and also working as Drawing and Disbursing Officer. Vide letters Ex. PW53/A and Ex. PW53/B, he had forwarded to CBI the documents relating to joining and relieving of Sh. BRS Rathaur at academy and copy of pay bill register reflecting salary paid to him from the period 4.7.83 to 18.2.84. The copies of pay bill register was Ex. PW53/C1 and C2. The copy of joining letter duly attested by this witness ie Ex. PW53/D and the consolidated statement of pay details as reflected in pay bill register is Ex. PW53/E. 4.55 PW 54 is Sh. J. K. Singh. He deposed that he was working as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi since 2010. His testimony shall be considered at a later stage as and when required.
4.56 PW55 is Sh. P. R. Kuril. He deposed that in August 2008 he was posted as Income Tax Officer, District Sitapur, UP. Vide letter Ex. PW55/A he had informed the CBI that Smt. Satyawati Singh and Sh. Surender Singh were not CC No. 12/2010 42 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 assessed in District Sitapur.
4.57 PW56 is Sh. Amar Singh. He deposed that he was working under the UP State Government and retired on 31.12.2013 as Sr. Administrative Officer, Collectorate Pilibheet, UP. In June 2009 he was posted at Collectorate Lakhimpur Kheeri. He further deposed that vide his letter Ex. PW56/A he had forwarded to CBI Pay Bill Register in respect of Sh. Braj Raj Singh Rathaur for the period July 1984 to December 1984 and calculation sheet reflecting the salary and allowances paid to BRS Rathaur during that period. The copies of PBR are Ex. PW56/B1 to PW56/B6 and calculation sheet is Ex. PW56/C. 4.58 PW57 is Sh. Johnson Joseph. He deposed that till 26.6.2014 he was working in National Stock Exchange at Chennai Office as Chief Manager. He further deposed that vide his letter dt. 24.10.2008 Ex. PW57/A he had furnished details relating to trade executed on the NSE by Braj Singh Rathaur having code VB 34. He annexed statement of Buy Trades Ex. PW57/B and Sell Trades Ex. PW57/C with his letter Ex. PW57/A. 4.59 PW58 is Sh. S. P. Singh. He deposed that in September 2007 he was posted as Joint Secretary (Services) Government of NCT of Delhi. A communication was received from Directorate of Vigilance MCD, seeking certain documents in respect of Sh. BRS Rathaur. He had collected the documents from various departments of the Government of NCT of Delhi and from Andeman and Nicobar Administration and forward them to CBI vide his letter Ex. PW58/A. The documents which he had forwarded to the CBI were letter Ex. PW58/B and pay and allowances drawn by BRS Rathaur from February1996 to February 1997 i.e. CC No. 12/2010 43 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Ex.PW58/B1.
4.60 PW59 is Sh. Mustaq Ahmad. He deposed that in the year 20082009 he was posted as Assistant GrII in the property section of Greater Noida Authority, Gautam Budh Nagar, District UP. He stated that file Ex. PW43/B in respect to property No. A77, Sector Alpha, Greater Noida was forwarded to CBI by Sh. Sandeep Kumar Manager ( Property )vide letter Ex. PW43/B. The allotment intimation letter is placed at page no. 2 of the file. The allotment was for Rs. 1,70,000/ and the land was 200 sq.mts. He deposed with regard to the payments made on various dates. He further deposed that as per computerized sheets of payments available at page no. 63, 64 and 65 of the file, a total sm of Rs. 1,72,554/ was paid. As per lease deed the total cost of the land was Rs. 2,38,000/.
4.61 PW 60 is D. K. Barik SP CBI, ACB, N. Delhi. He deposed that in the year 2007 he was posted as DSP in EOUV Branch of EO II Zone of CBI, New Delhi. His testimony shall be discussed at a later stage.
4.62 PW61 is Ms. Karishma Sama. She deposed that since November 2012, she had been working in M/s L&T Mutual Funds. Prior to that she was working in Fidelity Mutual Funds as Sr. Customer Services Executive. This company was taken over by M/s L&T Mutual Funds. She further deposed that in response to CBI queries in respect of Sh. BRS Rathaur, vide letter 12.7.2008, she had informed the CBI that no dividend had been paid to the investor and the folio number mentioned in the letter of CBI was in the name of Sh. Devi Prasad. She further deposed that vide letter Ex. PW61/B, dt.17.7.2008, having signatures of Sh. Vikram Soni Head Customer Service which she identified , application forms, copies CC No. 12/2010 44 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 of two cheques, details of investments made by BRS Rathaur were forwarded to CBI. These are Ex. PW61/B1 ( colly ).
4.63 PW62 is Ms. Vaishali Koppikar. She deposed that she was working in M/s Tata Asset Management Ltd since March 2004. In the year 2008, she was posted as Assistant Manager in the Investment Department of this company. She further deposed that vide letter dt 11.3.2008, Ex.PW62/A, she had provided to CBI details of investment made by Sh. Braj Raj Singh Rathaur. The details provided vide letter Ex. PW62/A were, sheet containing details of investment Ex. PW62/A1, statement of account Ex. PW62/A2, copy of purchase application form Ex. PW62/A3, statement of account of another investment Ex. PW62/A4 and copy of purchase application form in respect of second investment Ex. PW62/A5. Vide letter Ex. PW62/B she had again provided to CBI the documents which were already forwarded by her vide Ex. PW62/A along with details relating to another investment. The details provided by her were account statement Ex. PW62/B1, copy of purchase application form Ex. PW62/B2, copy of PAN Card Ex. PW62/B3 and a sheet mentioning the details of investment Ex. PW62/B4.
4.64 PW63 is Sh. Saravanan. He deposed that in the year 2008 he was working in Computer Age Management Services as relationship Manager for SBI Mutual Fund. Vide letter dt. 22.3.2008, Ex.PW63/1, he had supplied the statement of account for the period 1.1.2005 to 24.3.2008, in respect of one Braj Raj Singh Rathaur bearing Folio Nos. 5402895. 5811886, 6307021(02). These are Ex.PW63/2 to Ex.PW63/5.
4.65 PW64 is Ms. R. Naidu. She deposed that in April 2008 she was CC No. 12/2010 45 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 working as Chief Manager with Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund. Vide letter dt. 1.4.2008, Ex. PW64/1, she had sent to CBI statement of account of BRS Rathaur in respect of Folio No. 1012687073. The statement of account is Ex. PW64/2.
4.66 PW65 is Sh. S. Radhakrishna Singh. He deposed that in the year 2008 he was working as Sr. Executive with Data Software Research Co. Pvt Ltd. Vide letter dt. 7.8.2008, Sh. H. Krishna Murthy who was his superior, had informed the CBI that on 25.7.92, after purchasing from open market, hundred shares of Essar Steel were transferred in favour of Chandan Singh Ratharu jointly with Braj Singh Rathaur. The consideration amount paid was Rs. 15000/. The photo copy of share transfer form reflecting this transaction was attached with letter Ex. PW65/1.
4.67 PW66 is Sh. Pawan Kumar. He deposed that he was working as Head (Legal) with Globe Capital Market Ltd, 609 Ansal Bhawan, KG Marg, N. Delhi. Vide letter dt. 24.7.2008, Ex. PW66/1, Mr. Deepak Sadhwani, Compliance Officer of his company had sent Dmat account, list of address of Registrar, Folio numbers, number of shares , company names and copy of Dmat request form of concerned companies. The Demat request form Ex. PW66/2 was received from Braj Raj Singh for converting the physical shares of various companies in electronics shares was also sent to CBI by Sh. Sunil Kumar Sharma Executive in Depository Division of his company.
4.68 PW67 is Rinku Tiwari. He was an Executive Commercial in M/s Titan Company Ltd. Tanishq. He proved the invoice Ex.PW67/4 vide which jewellery worth Rs.8016 was purchased by BR Singh. He deposed that vide seizure memo Ex.PW67/1 various documents from their company were seized by the CBI.
CC No. 12/2010 46(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 4.69 PW68 is Rajesh Chahal. He is the IO of the case. His testimony shall be considered at a later stage as and when required.
5. Statement of Accused and Defence Evidence 5.1 Thereafter, statement of accused was recorded u/s 313 Cr.P.C. and accused preferred to lead evidence and examined 15 witnesses.
5.2 DW1 is Jagdish Salwan, Manager from Citi Bank. He has proved the statement of account of account no. 5038415001 of BRS Rathaur for the years 1995 to 2006 as Ex.DW1/1.
5.3 DW2 is Vivek Kumar Jaggi, Manager, Allahabad Bank. He has proved the statement of account of account no. 11338 in the name of Maa Satya Devi from 1995 to February 2001 as Ex.DW2/1.
5.4 DW3 Laxmi Niwas Gaur, DW4 Dr. Atul Pandya, DW5 Mahinder Kumar, DW6 Manisha Pujari , DW8 Davinder Singh, DW9 Chanderveer, DW10 Sompal, DW11, Rajpal Singh, DW12 Mahinder Singh, DW13 Prahlad Tarar, DW14 Bhim Singh and DW15 Mohit Puri are the disciples of Maa Satya Devi. Their testimonies shall be considered at a later stage as and when required.
5.5 DW7 is Ashutosh Verma, Branch Manager from Bank of Baroda, UP. He proved the statement of account of account no. 07370100000841 in the name of Satyawati Singh as Ex.DW7/1.
6. Findings 6.1 I have heard ld. PP for CBI as well as ld. counsels for the accused and perused the written submissions filed on behalf of accused.
CC No. 12/2010 47(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016
7. First I shall take up the legal objections raised on behalf of the accused.
7.1 The first legal objection taken on behalf of the accused is regarding the check period. It is contended on behalf of the accused that without any justification, the prosecution has taken the entire service period of the accused in DANICS to be the check period. However, initially the FIR was registered by taking the check period as March 1996 to 11.10.2006. Without assigning any reason, the IO has enhanced the check period. It is further contended that although the prosecution has all the rights to decide the check period, it cannot be done arbitrarily. It is further contended that after a complete analysis of the case, the sanctioning authority accorded sanction for the check period 1.1.96 to 11.10.06 and therefore, the selection of check period as mentioned in the charge sheet particularly from 1.1.85 to 31.12.95, for which no bank account statement, no income tax returns could be procured or could be placed on record, has caused serious prejudice to the accused. In this regard, reliance has been placed on the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of Maharashtra Vs. Pollonji Darabshaw AIR 1988 SC 88 wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held as under: "The choice of period must necessarily be determined by the allegations of fact on which the prosecution is founded and rests. However, the period must be such as to enable a true and comprehensive picture of the known sources of income and pecuniary resources and property in possession of the public servant either by himself or through any other person on his behalf which are alleged to be disproportionate."
7.2 I have carefully considered this contention. It is correct that initially the check period was taken by CBI from March 1996 to 11.10.2006. However, during the investigation, this check period was enhanced to 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006.
CC No. 12/2010 48(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 7.2 The IO, during his cross examination on this point, had admitted that as per the FIR, the check period was from March 1996 to 11.10.2006. He denied that there was no specific reason why the entire service period of the accused till the date of search was taken as the check period. However, to take a holistic view regarding the assets and income of the accused this check period was taken, especially when there was no reason to bifurcate. He admitted that he did not not have the bank statements or the investment details of the accused prior to 1996. He admitted that on joining service, a government officer had to submit his property declaration to his department. He did not made any efforts to collect the initial property returns filed by the accused either at the time of joining UP PCS or at the time of joining DANICS.
7.3 From the above testimony of the IO, it is very much clear that the IO has not been able to satisfactorily reply for the extension of the check period and has merely stated that it was done to obtain a holistic view and further there was no reason to bifurcate the period. The ground taken on behalf of the accused is that assets prior to check period at the time of joining the services were not collected and therefore, benefit of those assets could not be given to the accused and this has caused serious prejudice to the accused. A further ground is taken that the incomes prior to 1996 were not collected by the IO and this has again caused serious prejudice to the accused. However, I find that no specific reason has been assigned on behalf of the accused as to why this period should not have been taken as check period. The accused had preferred to lead evidence in his defence and examined as many as 15 witness. Therefore, the accused could have very well summoned the record from his departments to show the assets at the beginning of the check period CC No. 12/2010 49 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 as had been declared by him at the time of filing his declaration. He could have further proved the bank records to prove the investment at the beginning of the check period. However, the accused has not done so. By doing so, the accused could have reflected the prejudice that had been caused to him. Therefore, I find that though the check period is extensively long, but it has not been shown to have caused any serious prejudice to the accused.
8 The next contention raised on behalf of accused is regarding the validity of sanction for prosecution.
8.1 It has been contended that the accused was a DANICS Officer, (Jag1) and sanction was granted on behalf of the President of India, by the Minister of State in Ministry of Home Affairs. This sanction is being challenged on the ground that Minister of State for Home Affairs is not the competent authority to accord sanction and the competent authority in this regard was the Minister of Home Affairs. It is further contended that as per Article 77(3) of the Constitution of India, the President of India is granted a power to formulate rules for the more convenient transaction of the business of the Government of India, and for the allocation of work amongst Ministers. It is further contended that pursuant to Article 77 (3) of the Constitution of India, Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules) 1961 were formulated and these rules deal with the sanction for prosecution. Rules 3 & 4 have been relied upon in this regard which is as under:
3."Where sanction for the prosecution of any person for any offence is required to be accorded If he is a Government servant, by the Department which is the Cadre Controlling authority for the service of which he is a member, and in any other case, by the Department in which he was working at the time CC No. 12/2010 50 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 of commission of the alleged offence.
"4. Allocation of Departments among Ministers2
1. The business of the Government of India allocated to Cabinet Secretariat is and, shall always be deemed to have been, allotted to the Prime Minister.
Subject to the provisions of subrule (1), the President may, on the advise of the Prime Minister, allocate the business of the Government of India among Ministers by assigning one or more departments to the charge of a Minister.
Notwithstanding anything contained in subrule(1) or subrule(2), the President may, on the advice of the Prime Minister associate in relation to the business allotted to a Minister under either of the said subrules, another Minister or Deputy Minister to perform such functions as may be assigned to him; or entrust the responsibility for specified items of business affecting any one or more than one Department to a Minister who is in charge of any other Department or to a Minister without Portfolio who is not in charge of any Department."
8.2 It is thus contended, that the sanction for prosecution could only have been granted by Ministry of Home Affairs and as per rule (4) of the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961, this could have only been done by Minister of Home Affairs and not by Minister of State as has been done in the present case.
8.3 It is further contended that according to the testimony of PW54, the sanction was granted by Minister of State in view of order dated 21.08.2009 which is Ex.PW54/DB. This order was passed in view of Rule 3 of Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules 1961. It has further been contended that the sanction for prosecution has been provided for in the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961 and any circular delegating such power cannot be a valid CC No. 12/2010 51 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 circular and sanction granted pursuant to that circular is not a valid sanction. It has further been contended that Minister of Home Affairs has been allocated this power by way of Rule 3 and 4 of the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961 and he cannot further delegate this power to the Minister of State. Reliance has been placed on Union of India and others v BV Gopinath 2014, Vol 1, SCC 351 wherein Hon'ble Supreme court had held as under: "46. Accepting the submission of Ms. Indira Jaising would run counter to the well known maxim delegatus non protest delegare (or delegari). The principle is summed up in "Judicial Review of Administrative Action" De Smith, Woolf and Jowell (Fifth Edition) as follows: "The rule against delegation A discretionary power must, in general, be exercised only by the authority to which it has been committed. It is a well known principle of law that when a power has been confided to a person in circumstances indicating that trust is being placed in his individual judgment and discretion, he must exercise that power personally unless he has been expressly empowered to delegate it to another." The same principle has been described in "Administrative Law" H.W.R. Wade & C.F. Forsyth (Ninth Edition), Chapter 10, as follows: "Inalienable discretionary power an element which is essential to the lawful exercise of power is that it should be exercised by the authority upon whom it is conferred, and by no one else. The principle is strictly applied, even where it causes administrative inconvenience, except in cases where it may reasonably be inferred that the power was intended to be delegable. Normally the courts are rigorous in requiring the power to be exercised by the precise person or body stated in the statute, and in condemning as ultra vires action taken by agents, subcommittees or delegates, however expressly authorized by the authority endowed with the power."
8.4 Further reliance has been placed on Sahni Silk Mills (P) Ltd. & ESI Corporation, 1994 (5) SCC 346 wherein it has been held that delegated power cannot be sub delegated. He has further relied upon the judgments of Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of Goa v. Babu Thomas (2005) 8 SCC 130, K. Devasia v. State of Kerala (2006) 10 SCC.
CC No. 12/2010 52(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 8.5 It has further been contened on behalf of accused that the sanction for prosecution is also not valid because of the check period as mentioned in the sanction order. While according the Sanction for prosecution, the matter was dealt in detail and it was after the complete analysis of the situation, that sanction was accorded for the check period from 1.1.1996 to 11.10.2006. It was also mentioned in the draft sanction order and it was this date only, which was approved by the Minister of State and thus, communicated to CBI. By no stretch of imagination, it can be said to be a typographical error as the check period was decided by the sanctioning authority after due deliberation and application of mind. In this regard, reliance has been placed on J.Samuel & Ors. Vs. Gattu Mahesh & Ors. (2012) 1 SCR 295 wherein Para 21 and 22 of the said judgment the Apex Court was of the following view: "In the given facts, there is a clear lack of `due diligence' and the mistake committed certainly does not come within the preview of a typographical error. The term typographical error is defined as a mistake made in the printed/typed material during a printing/typing process. The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but usually excludes errors of ignorance. Therefore the act of neglecting to perform an action which one has an obligation to do cannot be called as a typographical error. As a consequence the plea of typographical error cannot be entertained in this regard since the situation is of lack of due diligence wherein such amendment is impliedly barred under the Code.
22. The claim of typographical error/mistake is baseless and cannot be accepted. In fact, had the person who prepared the plaint, signed and verified the plaint showed some attention, this omission could have been noticed and rectified there itself. In such circumstances, it cannot be construed that due diligence was adhered to and in any event, omission of mandatory requirement running into 3 to 4 sentences cannot be a typographical error as claimed by the plaintiffs. All these aspects have been rightly considered and concluded by the trial court and the High Court has committed an error in accepting the explanation CC No. 12/2010 53 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 that it was a typographical error to mention and it was an accidental slip."
8.6 I have given my considered thoughts to the contention raised on behalf of the accused.
8.7 The first contention raised on behalf of the accused is that the sanction in the present case has been granted by the Minister of State of Home Affairs and he could not have granted this sanction as the power was delegated to only the Minister of Home Affairs. In this regard, reliance has been placed on the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961. As per these rules, the sanction for prosecution is governed by rule 3 which has been reproduced above.
8.8 As per rule 3(a) which governs the case of the accused, as he was a government servant, the sanction had to be granted by a department which was the Cadre Controlling authority for the service of which the accused was a member. In case of accused, it was Ministry of Home Affairs and the sanction had to be granted by Ministry of Home Affairs. The allocation of business amongst the Ministers is governed by Rule 4 of the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961. Rule 4 (3) provides as under:
3. Notwithstanding anything contained in subrule(1) or subrule(2), the President may, on the advice of the Prime Minister
(a) associate in relation to the business allotted to a Minister under either of the said subrules, another Minister or Deputy Minister to perform such functions as may be assigned to him; or
(b) entrust the responsibility for specified items of business affecting any one or more than one Department to a Minister who is in charge of any other Department or to a Minister without Portfolio who is not in charge of any Department."
8.9 Therefore, as per rule 4 sub rule 3, the President on the advice of the Prime Minister can associate, in relation to the business allotted to a Minister under CC No. 12/2010 54 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 either of the said subrules, another Minister or Deputy Minister to perform such functions as may be assigned to him. Therefore, it is clear that the functions which have been assigned to Minister of Home Affairs, can also be assigned to any Deputy Minister or Minister of State. In the present case, that Minister becomes Minister of State for Home Affairs.
8.10 It is also very much clear that the allocation of business rules only govern the allocation of business and how the allocated business is to be transacted is governed by the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961.
8.11 Rule 3 of these rules governs the disposal of business by Ministeries, which is as under: "3. Disposal of Business by Ministries: Subject to the provisions of these Rules in regard to consultation with other departments and submission of cases to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and its Committees and the President, all business allotted to a department under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, shall be disposed of by, or under the general or special directions of, the Ministerincharge." 8.12 Rule 3 makes it very clear that the business allocated to a Minister or Ministry has to be disposed of under the general or special directions of the Minister Incharge.
8.13 A cumulative reading of the allocation of business rules and transaction of business rules clearly show that the business of the Government of India, including the sanction for prosecution of its employees, has to be conducted through its Ministries and the head of the Ministry i.e. the Minister incharge, can specify the manner in which such business has to be transacted. The Minister incharge can assign a particular work of his Ministry to any Minister associated with him. Assignment of work or power is not synonyms to delegation of such person.
CC No. 12/2010 55(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Therefore, the Minister incharge can very well direct the manner in which or the person/ associate by whom the sanction for prosecution has to be granted and this cannot be considered to be a sub delegation.
8.14 In case of accused, there are two office orders which have been proved during the cross examination of PW54 which are Ex.PW54/DA and Ex.PW54/DB. Vide Ex.PW54/DA, Home Minister by virtue of power u/r 3 of The Government of India (Transaction of Business Rules) 1961 had directed that the files relating to disciplinary cases against the officers/ officials of the UT, except the officer of Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, shall be submitted to the Minister of State for orders. The matters of disciplinary proceedings/ prosecution, sanctions relating to the officers of IAS and IPS of AGMU cadre were to continue to be submitted to the Home Minister for orders.
8.15 Vide Ex.PW54/DB, it was ordered that the service matters of DANICS & DANIPS officers such as their appointment, promotions, cadre review, amendment of the service rules and all allied matters shall be submitted to the Minister of State.
8.16 A careful reading of Ex.PW54/DA and Ex.PW54/DB clearly shows that all disciplinary action against the officers/ officials of UT had to be dealt with by Minister of State. A further clarification that matters of disciplinary proceeding / prosecution of IAS and IPS AGMU cadre shall remain with Minister of Home clearly shows, that sanction for prosecution in respect of other officials/ employees of UT, to which the accused belongs, was assigned to Minister of State. It is also to be noticed that assigining of work has to be distinguished from the delegation. An allocated work as per the Allocation of Business Rules has to be transacted as per CC No. 12/2010 56 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 the Transaction Rules which clearly empowers a Minister to assign a particular work allocated to him and issue directions regarding the manner in which a particular work allocated to him has to be assigned or executed.
8.17 Therefore, in the present case, it was not a sub delegation of power but was an assigning of work by Minister who was well within his powers to assign such work as per rule 3 of Transaction of Business Rules and the judgments cited by learned counsel for accused are not applicable to the present case. I accordingly find that the sanctioning authority i.e. Minister of State who had granted sanction in the present case was competent to grant sanction.
9 Coming onto the next contention raised on behalf of the accused that the sanction order is not valid because of the check period as mentioned in the sanction order.
9.1 It is contended that while according The Sanction for prosecution the matter was dealt with in detail and it was after the complete analysis of the situation that sanction was accorded for the period from 1.1.1996 to 11.10.2006. In this regard, statement of PW54 is important.
9.2 PW54 J.K Singh, Under Secretary deposed that in 2009, a request was received from CBI for grant of sanction for prosecution by the competent authority against Shri B R S Rathour. The matter was processed by him and he had called for the record of the case from CBI. The CBI accordingly submitted the documents and statements of witnesses. On receipt of record, he processed the file, went through the documents and statements of witnesses and submitted it alongwith the record received from the CBI, to his Senior Officer. The file went upto the Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs, who tentatively agreed for grant of sanction.
CC No. 12/2010 57(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 However, before finalizing the sanction he referred the matter to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) for advice. The CVC agreed with the tentative approval of the competent authority. On receipt of advice from the CVC, the file was again submitted to the superior officers and finally, the sanction was accorded by the then Hon'ble Minister of State. After the grant of approval he conveyed to CBI the sanction for prosecution of Shri B R S Rathour vide his letter Ex.PW54/A, dated 15.04.2010. The sanction order authenticated by him is Ex. PW54/B. The sanction was granted by the Hon'ble Minister u/s. 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Hon'ble Minister of State for Home Affairs, was competent to grant sanction in the name of Hon'ble President of India.
9.3 During his cross examination, he deposed that while initiating the proceedings for grant of sanction, he had forwarded to the superior officers the SP Report, the documents and the statements of witnesses received from CBI. The list of documents and the list of witnesses are there in the SP report. No additional document or statement of the witness was called for from the CBI as the ones sent earlier were sufficient for purpose of grant of sanction. While initiating the file he had forwarded all the documents received from CBI to his superior officer. He did not make any entry with regard to the number of documents received and nature of documents as, no such record was maintained in the office. While submitting the file to the superior officer, he had not mentioned as to how many number of documents he was forwarding, as the same was not required. However reference of the documents was made in the note. He further deposed that while initiating the file, he was supposed to go through the documents and examine them. After approval from the then Minister of State for Home Affairs, the file was forwarded to Central CC No. 12/2010 58 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Vigilance Commission (CVC) for advice. He denied that the file was never forwarded to CVC for advice. After receiving the advice of CVC the file was processed again and a draft sanction order was also placed on the file for approval. He had conveyed the sanction as per the approved draft.
9.4 Thereafter, PW54 was reexamined u/s 311 Cr.P.C. During his re examination, he deposed that he had brought the entire file pertaining to sanction granted in respect of accused B. R. S. Rathaur. The sanction for prosecution of Sh. B. R. S. Rathaur was processed in the Ministry. The relevant noting on this aspect was from page no. 4 to 12 of the file. As per the note dated 7.1.2010 prepared by him, it was observed that during the investigation CBI had extended the check period and taken it to be from 1.1.1985 to 11.10.2006 i.e the date of search. This note had his signatures at point A and was exhibited as Ex.PW54/C. The note Ex.PW54/C was approved by the Minister on 19.1.2010 who had signed at point B on Ex. PW54/C. As a follow up, the matter was to be sent to CVC and approval in this regard was sought vide note 09.02.2010. On approval being granted, the file was sent to CVC vide letter dated 11.02.2010 and noting in this regard was Ex.PW54/D. In response, the CVC had agreed with the Ministry that the sanction for prosecution of Sh. BRS Rathor was made out. This agreement was communicated to the Ministry vide letter dated 06.04.2010. The Vigilance Department of the Ministry had sent this letter Ex.PW54/E for appropriate action. On the basis of this, he prepared the note Ex.PW54/F dated 13.4.2010 seeking the accord of sanction by the Minister for prosecution of Sh. B. R. S. Rathaur as required U/s 19 of the POC Act. He had also prepared a draft order. This note and the draft sanction order was approved by the Minister of State Sh. M. Ramchandaran at point B on Ex. PW54/F. The note CC No. 12/2010 59 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Ex.PW54/C was prepared by him on the basis of the request of CBI and the documents annexed therewith. The request for grant of sanction was made by CBI through a letter Ex.PW54/G dated 29.6.2009. He further deposed that on the basis of entire record, he could say that Minister intended and had infact approved the sanction for prosecution of Sh. B. R. S. Rathaur for the check period wef Ist January 1985 to 11.10.2006. After seeing the sanction order Ex. PW54/B and especially para no.2 of the order wherein check period had been mentioned from 1.1.96 to 11.10.2006, he stated that this was merely a typographical error as according to the record the sanction had been accorded wef 1.1.1985 to 11.10.2006.
9.5 During his cross examination, he admitted that in this case the correspondence between CBI and MHA started in the year 2007. In note Ex.PW54/C, para no. 7, 8, and 9 were his observations/conclusion with regard to request of CBI for grant of sanction to prosecute Sh. B. R. S. Rathaur. In these three paras, he had not mentioned the check period. The draft order which found mention in Ex. PW54/F, was not available on record. In absence of the draft order, he could not admit or deny that in the draft order also the check period was mentioned as 1.1.1996 to 11.10.2006. He admitted that the final order of sanction Ex.PW54/B was the exact reproduction/copy of the draft which had been approved by the Hon'ble Minister of State for Home Affairs. He denied that after due deliberations and consciously, the Ministry of Home Affairs had granted sanction only for the check period w.e.f 1.1.1996 to 11.10.2006 or, that the request of the CBI to grant sanction for the period 1.1.1985 to 11.10.2006 was not accepted by the Ministry. 9.6 Now the first note which was prepared on the request of the CBI is Ex.PW54/C. In para 2 of this note, it is clearly mentioned that check period which CC No. 12/2010 60 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 was initially taken by CBI from 1.1.96 to 11.10.06, had been extended during the investigation and was taken from 1.1.85 to 11.10.96. Further reading of this note clearly shows that assets, income and expenditure of the accused which have been taken into consideration in this note are as per the chargesheet of the CBI i.e. from 1.1.85 to 11.10.06. In the last paragraph of this note, it has been observed as under: In view of the foregoing, it is submitted for kind consideration of the Hon'ble Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs [MOS (R)] on behalf of the President of India for taking a tentative decision as to whether sanction for prosecution u/s 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 for launching the prosecution of BRS Rathaur, JAG Officer of DANICS may be accorded. Thereafter, this file will be referred to the Central Vigilance Commission for their advice.
9.7 This note has nowhere put any quantification on the check period as has been extended by CBI. In this note, there is no disagreement to the extension of check period. Entire reading of this note makes the intent of the Ministry and the Minister very clear that the check period had to be taken from 1.1.85 to 11.10.06. On approval of this note, a further note was put up for approving the sending of the file to CVC for its advice. Para 2 of this note is as under: On the basis of the investigation, CBI has come to the conclusion that during the check period 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006, BRS Rathaur was found in possession of disproportionate assets worth Rs.90,08,554/ as against his known source of income of Rs.54,41,350/ which could not be satisfactorily accounted for by him. The details of calculations note may be seen at page no. 2/N ante.
9.8 This proposal was approved by the Secretary Administration vide his signatures at point A on Ex.PW54/D. 9.9 This further makes it clear that the Ministry had intended to accord sanction from 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006 and not from 01.01.1996 to 11.10.2006, as has been contended on behalf of the accused.
CC No. 12/2010 61(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 9.10 Considering the files sent pursuant to note Ex.PW54/F, CVC approved / advised the grant of sanction vide note Ex.PW54/E. A holistic reading of these documents clearly shows that Minister while considering this case, from the very beginning, was well aware that the check period had been extended and was being taken from 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006 instead of 01.01.1996 to 11.10.2006. The SP report which was sent to the Ministry is Ex.PW54/G1. It also clearly mentioned the check period to be 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006 and it considered the assets, income and expenditure of the accused for this period only. Therefore, when the department went through this entire issue, Minister of Home Affairs was well aware of the extension of check period and was approving the check period from 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006. I find that testimony of PW54 that mentioning of the check period as 01.01.1996 was merely a typographical error and that in fact, the sanction had been granted from 01.01.1985 to 11.10.2006 is supported by the office notings and deliberations that had taken place in the Ministry in the process of granting this sanction. I accordingly find no infirmity in the sanction for prosecution u/s 19 of POC Act and hold that it was a valid sanction order.
10 Now I shall take up the entries of assets, income and expenditure of the accused as have been challenged by him during the course of arguments.
Assets 11 First, I shall take up the immovable assets of the accused at the end of the check period. In the statement reflecting immovable assets, two entries have been shown by CBI.
11.1 The first is the acquisition of plot no. A77, Sector - Alpha 1, Greater Noida, Gautambudh Nagar by accused BRS Rathaur for a total cost of Rs.2,63,574/ CC No. 12/2010 62 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 and the second is the cost of construction of a house at the aforesaid plot which has been assessed by CBI as Rs.29,71,600/. Thus, according to the CBI, the total immovable assets of the accused at the end of the check period were Rs.32,34,174/.
11.2 As regards the cost of land, the accused has conceded during the arguments as well as in written submissions, that the land was acquired by the accused for a consideration of Rs.2,63,574/. However, the accused has contended that cost of construction of the land which has been assessed by CBI as Rs.29,71,600/ cannot be attributed to him. It is contended that accused BRS Rathor vide GPA dated 08.09.1998 had handed over this plot to Maa Satya Devi. Vide this GPA, Maa Satya Devi was also authorized to construct the plot and use it as per the requirement/ needs. The entire construction upon this plot was done after this GPA and therefore, the cost of construction cannot be attributed to accused BRS Rathaur.
11.3 I have carefully considered this contention of the accused.
11.4 The GPA through which, as per the assertion of the accused, the property was transferred to Maa Satya Devi has been collected by the investigating agency during the course of investigation and was sent for examination of handwriting and signatures to GEQD at CFSL, Shimla. This GPA has been proved by PW51 Sh. R.S Rana who is a witness from CFSL, Shimla and is Ex.PW51/D. 11.5 The genuineness and authenticity of this GPA has not been challenged by CBI. Even otherwise, the stamp paper on which this GPA was prepared was purchased on 08.05.1998. The GPA is also dated 08.05.1998. This GPA gave almost all the rights in that land, including the rights of raising construction, to Maa Satya Devi.
CC No. 12/2010 63(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 11.6 Now the question which arises is, that who was the person who had spent money on the construction of the building upon this plot? The prosecution has not brought any specific evidence to prove that this construction was raised by accused BRS Rathaur. Although it was imperative for the prosecution to bring this evidence especially, in view of the fact that this GPA was executed by accused BRS Rathaur in 1998 i.e. much prior to the registration of this case and further that this GPA later on culminated into a gift deed dated 12.07.2001 vide which accused BRS Rathaur had gifted this property to Maa Satya Devi. The gift deed has been proved on record as Ex.PW39/A. The prosecution has sought to rely only upon the fact that the completion certificate and the sanctioned building plan etc. were obtained under the signatures of accused BRS Rathaur and therefore, the construction must have been done by him. However, in view of the fact that there was a GPA in favour of Satya Devi prior to the sanction of the building plans and construction of the building and subsequently that plot, alongwith the building was gifted to Maa Satya Devi vide gift deed Ex.PW39/A, this fact alone is not sufficient to establish that whatever cost was incurred upon this property was incurred by accused BRS Rathaur.
11.7 On the contrary, there are witnesses which have been examined by the prosecution who have deposed otherwise.
11.8 The first witness is PW39 Satish Kumar Chauhan. He deposed that he was working as Jr. Engineer in MCD and was a disciple to Maa Satya Devi. He further deposed that he knew accused BRS Rathaur from the date he (PW39) became the disciple of Maa Satya Devi. He further deposed that accused BRS Rathaur had donated a plot no. A77, Sector Alpha 1, Greater Noida to Maa Satya CC No. 12/2010 64 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Devi for construction of a Yog Sansthan and Mandir through transfer cum gift deed Ex.PW39/A and he was one of the witness to this gift deed. He further deposed that the plot was measuring 280 sq. meteres and a temple was constructed. In the basement, there was a meditation room, a temple on the ground floor and a Ram naam Bank and two rooms for disciples on the first floor. He further deposed that in the construction, a major contribution was made by Sh. CS Rathaur, father of BRS Rathaur and small contributions were made by some other disciples. The construction was carried out under his supervision as he happened to be a civil engineer. This responsibility was put om him by Maa Satya Devi. Accused BRS Rathaur was an occasional visitor. Construction was not carried out in the presence of accused BRS Rathaur. For day to day administrative work of the Yog Sansthan, Maa Satya Devi had executed a POA in favour of accused BRS Rathaur as she was having various institutions in different parts of the country and for running of these institutions she has assigned this responsibility through power of attorney in favour of different persons in each location.
11.9 During his cross examination he deposed that he had explained to CBI officers about small contributions made by disciples during the construction of plot A77. He further deposed that CBI had never asked him to produce the vouchers nor asked for payments made by Sh. BRS Rathaur.
11.10 Another witness is PW47 Anand Kumar. He was a professor in the School of Social Sciences, Centre for Study of Social Systems. He was also a disciple of Maa Satya Devi. He was a witness to power of attorney Ex.PW39/B and also to Will of Maa Satya Devi Ex.PW47/A. During his cross examination, he deposed that the funds for raising construction of temple came from devotees.
CC No. 12/2010 65(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 11.11 The next witness who had said something regarding the construction is PW68 Rajesh Chahal, DSP, CBI. He was one of the IOs of this case. During his examination in chief he deposed that he had collected the original file of plot no. A 77, Sector Alpha 1, Greater Noida through forwarding letter Ex.PW43/A. The file is Ex.PW43/B. During his cross examination, he admitted that the plot no. A77, Sector Alpha 1 had been given accused BRS Rathaur to Maa Satya Devi through GPA and the entire construction of that plot was done by Maa Satya Devi. He further deposed that Maa Satya Devi could not produce any evidence to show that she had incurred any expenditure on the construction of that plot. On the contrary, Sh. BRS Rathaur had applied for sanctioned plan of the building and completion certificate and it is for this reason that he had reached at a conclusion that the construction was carried out by accused and not by Maa Satya Devi. He did not investigate to find out wherefrom, the construction material for the construction upon this plot was purchased. He admitted that during the investigation, a claim was made that major part of the expenditure on construction on this plot was incurred by Chandan Singh Rathaur. In order to verify this, he checked the bank accounts of CS Rathaur and reached to a conclusion that CS Rathaur did not have the capacity to incur such expenditure. He did not place the bank statements of Sh. CS Rathaur on record to substantiate the aforesaid findings. He did not record the statement of any neighbour on the aspect as to who had got this plot constructed. The figure of alleged contribution of Rs.07 lacs by Sh. Chandan Singh Rathaur on the construction upon this plot was the figure as provided to him by the accused. He did not know and therefore could not admit or deny, that for construction on this plot, no contractor was engaged or that the whole construction was supervised by Sh. Satish Chauhan, CC No. 12/2010 66 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 a civil engineer who did not charge any amount. He admitted that he had examined Sh. Satish Chauhan. He admitted that Satish Chauhan had stated that a major contribution towards the aforesaid construction was made by Sh. Chandan Singh Rathaur and volunteered, that he did not believe the statement for the reasons already stated. He admitted that Satish Chauhan had informed him that devotees of Satyawati Devi had also made contribution towards the construction and volunteered, that neither he (Satish Chauhan) nor Smt. Satya Devi could provide him the details of any devotees or their contribution.
11.12 On the other hand, the accused in his defence had examined DW3 who deposed, that for the construction of the Ashram contributions were made either in cash or in kind by the disciples of Maa Satya Devi including the father of accused BRS Rathaur. During his cross examination, he deposed that he had not seen any accounts or diary wherein the contributions made by disciples either in cash or in kind were entered.
11.13 The other witness is DW6 Manisha Punjari who deposed that in the year 199/2000, her father and her family shifted to house at A89, Alpha1, Greater Noida. This house was neighboring to the Ashram of Mata Satya Devi which was coming up at Noida. At around the age of 15 or 16 she came in contact with Mata Satya Devi and became her disciple. For construction of Ashram at Noida, her family had also made contributions and she had personally told to the contractor the kind of contribution her family wanted to make. As far as she recalled, they had donated 2 or 3 trucks of coarse sand ( badarpur ) and a few trucks of cement. Evening Satsangs used to be held at a make shift place for Puja and during those satsangs, she had seen the disciples making cash contributions and announcing CC No. 12/2010 67 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 contribution in kind. During her cross examination, she deposed that she did not have any records or document to show the purchase of the material which was contributed by her and her family for the construction of the Ashram and volunteered, that it was more than 17 years since then and thus, no such record was available. She denied that she never made any contributions to the construction of ashram and thus, she was not able to produce any record.
11.14 In the light of the evidence as has been reproduced above, it is very much clear that CBI has not been able to bring any evidence to show that the construction on this property was done by accused BRS Rathaur. It is also very much clear that the IO during the investigation had come to know that this property had been given by accused BRS Rathaur to Maa Satya Devi. He had also come to know about the claim of the accused that the construction was raised by Maa Satya Devi. Through statement u/s 161 Cr.P.C of Satish Kumar Chauhan, he had also come to know that construction was raised from the contributions of the disciples of Maa Satya Devi including father of accused BRS Rathaur namely Sh. CS Rathaur. IO stated that he did not believe this assertion because on checking the bank statement of Sh. CS Rathaur, he found that Sh. CS Rathaur did not have enough sources to fund such construction. However, the IO surprisingly withheld this information to substantiate his case. Therefore, it is very much apparent that on this aspect no investigation was made by the IO as is visible from the testimony of the IO and the IO had presumptively concluded that the construction was raised by accused BRS Rathaur. On the contrary, the witnesses of the prosecution itself have deposed in their unrebutted testimonies that the construction was not raised by accused BRS Rathaur. These testimonies, coupled with the fact that accused BRS Rathaur prior to CC No. 12/2010 68 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 the registration of this case in the year 2007 had given the GPA to construct this plot to Maa Satya Devi in the year 1998 and gifted this plot alongwith the constructed house to Maa Satya Devi in the year 2001, raise a very strong probability that the accused had not raised any construction on this plot and therefore, the cost of construction i.e. Rs.29,71,600/ cannot be added to the assets of the accused.
11.15 The net result is that from the immovable assets of the accused as has been calculated by the CBI, a sum of Rs.29,71,600/ which has been given to the accused towards cost of construction of house no. A77, Sector Alpha 1, Greater Noida has to be excluded and thus, the total immovable assets comes to Rs.2,63,574/.
12 Next I shall take up the entries in movable assets which have been challenged on behalf of the accused.
12.1 The first entry challenged on behalf of accused is entry no. 9. This entry pertains to investment in shares by accused BRS Rathaur and shares held as on 11.10.2006.
12.2 According to the prosecution, as on 11.10.2006, accused BRS Rathaur was holding shares of various companies to the tune of Rs.15,83,888.31.
12.3 It has been contended on behalf of the accused that the relevant documents have been proved by PW20 and PW34 and as per the deposition of these witnesses and the documents, it is very much clear that as on 11.10.2006, accused BRS Rathaur held shares worth Rs. 15,35,568.31. However, it has been clearly stated in Ex.PW20/B1 that the accused had made a net payment of only Rs.8,73,304.14 to M/s Pee Aar Securities for the purchase of shares and hence, in place of CC No. 12/2010 69 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Rs.15,83,888.31, the value of movable assets in entry no. 9 should be taken as Rs.8,73,304.14 thereby reducing the value of movable assets by Rs.7,10,584.17.
12.4 I have carefully considered this contention made on behalf of the accused as well as perused the documents Ex.PW20/A, Ex.PW20/B, Ex.PW20/B1, Ex.PW20/B2, Ex.PW20/C and Ex.PW20/D. 12.5 It is correct that as per the document Ex.PW20/B1, M/s Pee Aar Securities had stated that they had only received a payment of Rs.8,73,304.14 from the accused. PW20 Mukesh Pal Verma during his cross examination had admitted that as per Ex.PW20/B, the net payment received by M/s PR Securities was Rs.8,73,304.14. He further deposed that as per letter Ex.PW20/C, an amount of Rs.5,44,852.64 had been shown as reinvestment. He admitted that Ex.PW20/D showed the details of shares sold and shares reinvested. He denied that they had not submitted the complete statement of account showing all the transactions between their company and accused BRS Rathaur.
12.6 On the other hand, PW34 Ved Prakash Gupta, who was Director of M/s Pee Aar Securities Ltd., had deposed that during the period from 25.02.2005 to 11.10.2006, accused BRS Rathaur had received an amount of Rs.1,17,411.53 as profit earned through sale and purchase of shares, that accused BRS Rathaur made a total payment of Rs.8,73,304.14 to his company in the form of payments received and made to BRS Rathaur which also formed part of the shares in hand. He further deposed that the remainder of the shares in hand amounting to Rs.5,44,852.64 reflected the shares not purchased through his company but sold through his company and that amount remained with his company.
CC No. 12/2010 70(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 12.7 From the documents and the testimonies of the witnesses, it is very much clear that accused BRS Rathaur as on 11.10.2006 held shares having net worth of Rs.15,35,568.31. It is also correct that between 25.02.2005 to 11.10.2006, accused BRS Rathaur had only made a payment of Rs.8,73,314.14 to M/s Pee Aar Securities for purchase of shares. However, there is no force in the contention of learned counsel for the accused that it is only this amount that should be taken as the value of the shares held because it was only this amount that had been invested by the accused. The witnesses have categorically deposed that shares for an amount of Rs.5,44,842.64 which was reinvested were not purchased by accused through M/s Pee Aar Securities. Meaning thereby, that these shares were purchased by accused through some other broker and then later on transferred to his account with M/s Pee Aar Securities and thus, this amount cannot be discounted and taken out of the assets value under this head. I accordingly find that the total asset value of the accused in the form of shares in various companies as on 11.10.2006 is Rs.14,18,156.78. Accordingly, Rs.1,65,731.53 should be deducted from the amount of entry no. 9 of movable assets.
13 The next entries challenged on behalf of accused are entries no. 19, 20 and 21 in the list of movable assets.
13.1 Entry no. 19 is regarding an investment of Rs.49,000/ in SBI Mutual Fund on 08.08.2005. Entry no. 20 is regarding an investment of Rs.49,000/ in SBI Mutual Fund on 20.09.2005 and entry no. 21 is regarding an investment of Rs.1,00,000/ in SBI Blue Chip Fund on 14.02.2006.
13.2 The witness who has proved this investment is PW63 who deposed that in the year 2003, he was working in Computer Age Management Service as CC No. 12/2010 71 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Relationship Manager for SBI Mutual Funds. He further deposed that vide his letter Ex.PW63/1 dated 22.03.2008, he had supplied the information to CBI regarding the investment made by accused BRS Rathaur in SBI Mutual Fund. Alongwith this letter, he had supplied the statement of account in respect of BRS Rathaur for folio no. 5402895, 5811886, 6307021 (02) for the period 01.01.2005 to 24.03.2008. These statements are Ex.PW63/2 to Ex.PW63/5.
13.3 It has been contended on behalf of accused that this witness who had appeared had no personal knowledge regarding the investment being made by accused and has only proved the statements of account. Further, these statements of account are computer generated statements and without a certificate u/s 65B of Evidence Act, these statements cannot be read in evidence and therefore, no reliance can be placed by the court upon these statements to arrive at a finding that BRS Rathaur had made such an investment.
13.4 I have considered the rival contention and I find that even at the time of exhibition of these documents, an objection was taken to the exhibition of these documents on the ground of absence of certificate u/s 65B of Evidence Act. It is also correct that these statements Ex.PW63/2 to Ex.PW63/5 are computer generated statements and therefore, they became secondary piece of evidence. In view of the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in Anwar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer and others Civil Appeal no.4226/2012 decided on 18.09.2014, these statements cannot be relied upon and no finding can be given by the court that such an investment was made by accused especially, when these statements even otherwise have not been certified by anyone and the person who had deposed regarding these statements has not claimed any personal knowledge about the investments allegedly made by CC No. 12/2010 72 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 accused. I accordingly find that an amount of Rs.1,98,000/ has to be deducted from the movable assets of the accused.
14 The next entry challenged on behalf of accused is entry no. 23 which is regarding a cash of Rs.36.5 lacs recovered from the house of accused BRS Rathaur during the search conducted at his house on 11.10.2006.
14.1 The claim of the accused is that this money did not belong to him and it was the money belonging to Maa Satya Singh which had been collected by her disciples for construction of a temple at Village Silawar. In this regard, it is contended on behalf of the accused that Maa Satya Singh got this money delivered to the residence of BRS Rathaur where she also used to reside. She got this money delivered through Mohit Puri (DW15) and Bhim Singh (DW14). The fact that Maa Satya Devi used to reside with accused BRS Rathaur is visible from the ration card Ex.PW68/D1 which was seized by the CBI during the raids conducted at the residence of accused BRS Rathaur. The fact that this amount was collected by disciples and given to Maa Satya Devi has been proved by DW8 to DW15 who have deposed in their natural way about the collection of money and its delivery to Satya Devi Singh.
14.2 On the other hand, ld. PP for CBI has contended that these witnesses are tutored and procured witnesses who have deposed falsely in order to save accused BRS Rathaur and there are contradictions in their testimonies which can clearly show that these witnesses are not credible.
14.3 I have considered the rival contention. The fact that the amount of Rs.36.5 lacs was recovered from the house of accused BRS Rathaur on 11.10.2006 is CC No. 12/2010 73 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 an undisputed fact. Therefore, I find no need to go into the evidence whereby such recovery has been effected.
14.4 The question which now remains to be decided is whether, accused BRS Rathaur has explained/ justified the presence of this huge amount of money in his house?
14.5 Accused BRS Rathaur has sought to justify the presence of this money in his house by attributing this amount to Smt. Satya Singh and by further claiming that this was sent to him by Satya Singh for keeping it in safe. In order to prove this fact, the accused had examined DW8 to DW15.
14.6 DW8 Davinder Singh deposed that he was associated with Mata Satya Devi for the past 25 years. In the year 2006, they requested Mata Satya Devi to build the temple near about their village. In August 2006 a large Bhandara was held in village Banath. They finalized a land for building temple in village Silawar and Mata Satya Devi blessed them for this purpose. During the Bhandara donation to the tune of Rs. 3,85,000/ was collected. Mataji kept that donation in his custody. In the meantime, he collected Rs. 2,75,000/ from his family. In October 2006, his cousin Satish came to him and said that they were to start work of temple and the money was required. He accordingly gave Rs. 6,60,000/ to Satish.
14.7 During his cross examination, he deposed that no receipts were issued against the donation received during bhandara or, the money which he had collected from his family. He had not taken any receipt from Satish at the time when he had handed over the money to him. He denied that no money was collected during bhandara that is why no receipt were issued or, that is why he was not able to CC No. 12/2010 74 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 produce any receipt. He denied that he had not given any money of Rs. 6,60,000/ to Satish that is why no receipt of the same was taken. He denied that he was deposing falsely in order to create a defence in favour of B. R. S. Rathaur who is nephew of Mata Satya Devi. Of the Rs. 2,75,000 contributed by his family, Rs. 21,000/ each was given by his father and three brothers, Rs. 25000/ each were given by him and his seven brothers and Rs. 11000/ was given by his wife and Rs. 1000/ by his son.
14.8 DW9 is Chanderveer. He deposed that he had been associated with Mata Satya Devi since the year 1995. He supervised the construction of Ashram at A77, Sector Alpha1 Greater Noida. He further deposed that in the year 2006, a bhandara was held in village Banat in UP. A decision was taken to construct a temple at village Silawar and for that purpose he collected Rs. 2,90,000/ from his relatives. In October 2006, Mataji had come to the ashram at Greater Noida and he had handed over that money in her presence to Satish Kumar who used to look after her affairs. During his cross examination, he deposed that he did not issue any receipt for the donation collected from his relatives. Neither had he taken nor had Satish issued receipt of Rs. 2,90,000/ which he had allegedly handed over to him in the year 2006. He denied that he was deposing falsely in order to save B. R. S. Rathaur who was nephew of Mata Satya Devi of whom he was a disciple.
14.9 DW10 is Sompal. He was also associated with Mata Satya Devi since the year 1990. In the year 2006 he had collected around Rs. 06 lac from the villagers in and around his village. He added to it Rs. 05 lacs, which he had collected from his family and relatives. In October 2006, he had handed over Rs.11 lacs to Mata Satya Devi at the Ashram at A77 Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida as a contribution to the activities of Anami Jyoti Trust.
CC No. 12/2010 75(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 14.10 During his cross examination, he deposed that he did not issue any receipt of the amount which he had collected either from the villagers or from his family and relatives. He did not maintain any account of the amount collected by him. He did not record the names of the contributors or the amount contributed by them in any note book or in any other form. He denied that that he had not collected any amount from the villagers and that is why he had not kept any such record. He denied that he had not contributed any money after collection from his family and that is why no record of such collection was maintained. Mata Satya Devi accepted the money with her own hands. He denied that he was deposing falsely regarding the collection and donation of money to Mata Satya Devi in order to save accused B. R. S. Ratore who is nephew of Mata Satya Devi. He further deposed that the temple which was to be built at Silawar could not be completed due to shortage of money.
14.11 DW11 is Rajpal Singh. He deposed that he was a disciple of Mata Satya Devi. In August 2006 a Bhandara was held in village Banat at UP, where the disciples sought the permission of Mata Satya Devi to build a temple at village Silawar. Mata Satya Devi blessed this project and people pledged their monitory support for the construction of temple. He also announced that he would donate Rs. 11 lacs for that purpose. On 8.10.2006, he gave Rs. 11 lacs to Mata Satya Devi at A 77 Sector Alpha 1, Greater Noida.
14.12 During his cross examination, he deposed that he retired from government service in the year 2006 and had received around Rs. 11 lacs. Around Rs. 23 lacs were contributed by his brothers and remaining he gave from his retirement funds. He had withdrawn money from his bank to pay his contribution of donation to Mata Satya Devi. He further deposed that he had not brought his pass CC No. 12/2010 76 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 book reflecting the withdrawal of Rs. 08 lacs from his bank in October 2006 and that, the bank had refused to give him the pass book for the relevant period. At the stage of his cross examination, Ld. PP for CBI had requested for summoning of bank record of the witness and the witness then deposed, that he had not withdrawn the amount of Rs. 08 lac from his account in one go or in the year 2006 or, in October 2006. He had withdrawn the money as and when it was credited from government treasury to his account and given it either to his brother or on interest. He had asked the persons to whom he had given the money at the time when he had to give it to Mata Satya Devi and after collecting money from those persons, he gave it to Mata Satya Devi. He denied that he had not collected any money to donate to Mata Satya Devi or, that he had not made any contribution of Rs.08 lacs or, that he had not given Rs.11 lacs to Mata Satya Devi or, that he was deposing falsely in order to save B. R. S. Rathaur who was nephew of Mata Satya Devi.
14.13 DW12 is Mahinder Singh. He deposed that he came in contact with Mata Satya Devi during the bhandaras held at village Banat. 56 bhandaras were held in that village and he attended all the bhandaras. He did not recall the year of attending those bhandaras. A decision was taken to construct a temple at village Silawar and people decided to collected contributions. He collected around Rs. 4,78,000/ to which he added Rs. 22000/ and in all, handed over Rs. 05 lacs to one Prahlad Singh on whose land the temple was to be built at village Silawar. He did not remember the year in which he had handed over Rs. 05 lac to Prahlad Singh.
14.14 During his cross examination, he deposed that he had not issued any receipt of the amount collected by him. He had not maintained any record or not recorded in any note book the amount collected by him or the names of the persons CC No. 12/2010 77 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 from whom he had collected this amount. The ashram at Silawar could not be completed, but he did not know the reason for it being incomplete. He denied that he had not collected any amount from the villagers and that is why, he had not kept any such record. He denied that he had not contributed any money after collection from his family and that is why no record of such collection was maintained. He denied that he was deposing falsely regarding the collection and donation of money to Mata Satya Devi in order to save accused B. R. S. Rathaur who was nephew of Mata Satya Devi.
14.15 DW13 is Prehlad Tarar. He deposed that he came into contact Mata Satya Devi and with her blessings, he could have children. He further deposed that in the year 2006, a bhandara was held at village Banat where a decision was taken to build a temple at village Silawar. He further deposed that the land for building this temple was donated from the common land belonging to him and his brothers. A huge amount was collected as donation from the neighboring villages. The amount was sent to Mata Satya Devi at her ashram at A77 Sector Alpha1, Greater Noida. In October 2006, he came to Greater Noida with Rs. 16 lacs. Of this amount, Rs. 05 lac was handed over by Mahinder Singh and 06 lac had been collected by him and his family from the villagers of his village. Of the remaining amount, he alongwith his two brothers contributed Rs. 25000/ each, two of his sisters contributed Rs.51000 each, Rs.51000 was contributed by his brother in law (Bahnoi). Remaining amount was contributed by his uncle Sompal Singh, who appeared as DW10. When he went to give the money to Mata Satya Devi , Sompal Singh had also gone with him. Of the amount, Mata Satya Devi returned Rs. 05 lacs to him and stated that this money should be utilized for building of temple at village Silawar. For the CC No. 12/2010 78 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 remaining amount Mata Satya Devi instructed Mohit Puri and Bhim Singh to deliver that amount to Braj Singh Rathaur and stated, that as and when required, money would be collected from him.
14.16 During his cross examination, he deposed that he did not issue any receipt of the contribution collected by him. He denied that as no contribution was collected by him, he could not produce any receipt note book or any other account of such collection. He denied that he had not gone to Greater Noida with Rs. 16 lacs with Sompal or, that it was for this reason, Sompal had not informed the court about him and Sompal visiting together. He denied that he was deposing falsely in order to save B. R. S. Rathaur who was a nephew of Mata Satya Devi. Mata Satya Devi had not issued any receipt of amount delivered by him.
14.17 DW14 Bhim Singh deposed that he knew Mata Satya Devi for around 12 to 13 years from the date of his deposition. He came into her contact because his son S. K. Chauhan used to visit her ashrams. He was not very close to her and he was not very much involved in the activities of Ashram or Mata Satya Devi. In the year 2006 Mata Satya Devi asked him to deliver some cash at government flats at Greater Kailash. He collected the cash from Greater Noida Ashram. He did not know how much money it was as it was in a briefcase which was locked. When he went to deliver the money, he was accompanied by some more persons. 14.18 During his cross examination, he deposed that he had no personal knowledge whether the briefcase which was handed over to him contained cash amount or not because, he had not been shown the money and he had not opened the briefcase and looked into it. He believed it was containing cash because he was told so. At that time when he was given this order, one more boy namely Mohit was also CC No. 12/2010 79 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 present. No other person apart from Mohit and him were present at the time when he was directed to deliver the briefcase at Government Flats at Greater Kailash. The said Mohit had accompanied him when he had gone to deliver the briefcase. He denied that he had not delivered any briefcase at Govt. Flat at Greater Kailash. 14.19 DW15 is Mohit Puri. He deposed that he was a neighbor of Mata Satya Devi and since his childhood, he had been associated with her. He used to attend Pujas and Bhandaras held by her. Mataji used to visit Greater Noida, Jodhpur, Ayudhaya etc and a lot of times he used to accompany her. In the year 2006, a bhandara was held at Banat where the villagers showed their inclination to build a temple. Mataji gave her consent and asked the villagers to collect money for building of the temple and said, that she would be back after two months when the collection was to be handed over to her and that she would also contribute whatever she could collect. On 9.10.2006, in the evening, Mataji called him and asked him to deliver the money to Braj Singh Rathaur as the money was not safe at Noida. The money which was given by the villagers and which have been brought by Mataji from Leharpur was kept in VIP Suitcase which was locked and handed over to him to deliver to B. R. S. Rathaur. On reaching the house of Braj Singh Rathaur, he informed him (BRS Rathaur) that Mataji had sent the money. Sh. BRS Rathaur told him that it was money belonging to Mataji and should be kept in her room. There was a room in the house of BRS Rathaur where Mataji used to come and stay. He went to that room and kept the suitcase under the bed. Thereafter he had tea with BRS Rathaur and left.
14.20 During his cross examination, he deposed that he had kept Rs. 5.3 lacs in that suitcase which he had brought from Leharpur. The remaining money was CC No. 12/2010 80 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 already in the briefcase. He did not know how much money it was, but Mataji had told him that in total the money was around Rs. 36.5 lacs. The briefcase which he had delivered was a big briefcase which was having a plastic body. The money was in the denomination of Rs.100/ and Rs.500/ currency notes. 02 or 03 more layers of currency could have been accommodated in that briefcase. He denied that he had never delivered any money to BRS Rathaur or, that he was deposing falsely in order to save BRS Rathaur who was nephew of Mata Satya Devi.
14.21 I have gone through the testimonies of these witnesses. All these witnesses are consistent in saying that in the year 2006, a bhandara was held at a village known as Banath in UP and it was a bhandara with huge gathering. However, apart from oral testimony, no documentation in the form of photographs, videography etc. has been proved before the court to substantiate this claim. It is also consistently stated that a temple was to be constructed at village Silawar. The construction of this temple started but remained unfinished. However, no revenue record has been brought on record to reflect that the land for this temple was donated by Prahlad Singh and his brothers. No photograph or picture of this unfinished temple being in existence at Village Silawar has been produced on record. Even if for the sake of arguments, I accept that such a bhandara was held wherein a resolution was passed to construct a temple, there are many contradictions in the testimonies of these witnesses which made them lose their credibility.
14.22 The first thing which has attracted my mind is, that all the witnesses have consistently stated that for the donations collected money from villagers and general public, they never issued any receipts or kept any record whatsoever by noting down in a copy etc. the names of the persons and the donation given by them CC No. 12/2010 81 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 against their names. Even if it is accepted that the receipts might not have been issued, it is highly improbable that such huge amounts would be collected without keeping a record of the persons from whom this amount was collected and the amount donated by those persons because such huge collections from numerous persons can only be done in a proper way if a record of such collection is maintained.
14.23 Now coming onto their testimonies regarding the donations being handed over to Maa Satya Devi.
14.24 The first witness which is of no consequence here is DW8. DW8 Davinder Singh claims to have collected Rs.2.75 lacs and claims that Rs.3.85 lacs were collected during the bhandara. He further stated that he had handed over Rs.6.60 lacs to Satish. Even if his testimony to this extent is accepted as completely correct, then whether this money in fact reached Satya Devi or not, has not been proved. At the most what has been proved is that money was handed over to one Satish. This Satish was never examined before the court to show that what happened to this money and whether, this money reached Maa Satya Devi or not. Thus, his testimony as far as the present case goes is of no consequence especially when this witness states that Satish collected money from him stating that the money was required for the construction of the temple.
14.25 The next witness is DW9 who claims to have collected Rs.2.95 lacs and handed over this money to Maa Satya Devi. However, this witness again has not kept any record of money collected and the persons from whom this money was collected.
CC No. 12/2010 82(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 14.26 The next witness is DW10 Som Pal. He claims to have collected Rs.6 lacs from the villagers and added Rs.5 lacs to it which he had collected from his family and relatives. He further claimed that he handed over this money of Rs.11 lacs to Maa Satya Devi at her ashram at Greater Noida. Connected to this witness is witness DW13 Prehlad Tarar. Contrary to the claim of DW10, DW13 Prehlad Terar claims that in October 2006, he alongwith DW10 went to Greater Noida and handed over Rs.16 lacs to Maa Satya Devi. Out of this Rs.16 lacs, an amount of Rs.5 lacs was given to him by Mahinder Singh who appeared as DW12. He alongwith his two brothers had contributed Rs.25,000/ each that makes Rs.75000/. His two sisters contributed Rs.51,000/ each which comes to Rs.1,02,000/ and Rs.51,000/ was contributed by his brother in law. Thus, in total, a sum of Rs.2.28 lacs was collected by him. Therefore, this means that the remaining amount was given to him by his uncle Som Pal whose testimony has been discussed earlier. On the contrary, Som Pal never claimed to have handed over any amount to DW13 Prahlad Tarar. It is to be seen that Som Pal claimed that he had collected Rs.11 lacs. If that 11 lacs is added to the 11 lacs of DW13, the total amount comes to Rs.22 lacs. Thus, DW13 should have handed over Rs. 22 lacs and not Rs.16 lacs to Maa Satya Devi. It is further to be noticed that Prahlad Singh stated that when he handed over Rs.16 lacs to Maa Satya Devi, he was accompanied by DW10 Som Pal. However, DW10 never stated that when he handed over his own Rs11 lacs to Maa Satya Devi, he was accompanied by Prahlad Singh, or if the arguments of defence is taken that he was never asked whether he was alone or accompanied by someone else, then Som Pal should at least have stated that the amount handed over was Rs. 16 lacs. Therefore the testimonies of both these witnesses are contradicting each other and cannot be relied upon.
CC No. 12/2010 83(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 14.27 Now, let us take the testimony of DW11 who claims that he had announced to give a donation of Rs.11 lacs for the construction of the temple and that on 08.10.06, he gave Rs.11 lacs to Maa Satya Devi at A77 Sector Alpha 1, Greater Noida. During his cross examination, he deposed that for the purpose of giving donation, he had withdrawn this money from his bank account. When asked about his pass book to show such withdrawal, he stated that the bank had refused to give his pass book. When Ld. PP for CBI requested for summoning of his bank record, he did volte face stating that he had not withdrawn money from his account his account in one go or in the year 2006 or in October 2006. It is very clear that when the bluff of this witness was called by Ld. PP, he retracted from his statement which had reflected how he had managed to get hold of Rs.11 lacs to donate Maa Satya Devi and thus, his testimony also loses its credibility. 14.28 Then there are two witnesses who stated that they were directed by Maa Satya Devi to deliver the money at the house of BRS Rathaur. These are DW14 and DW15. The first thing is that none of these witnesses have been able to prove the amount of money which was allegedly sent by Maa Satya Devi to BRS Rathaur. DW14 Bhim Singh had stated that he did not know how much money was in the briefcase as it was locked. DW15 Mohit was silent about the money in his examination in chief but in his cross examination, he stated that he had kept Rs.5.30 lacs in the brief case and the remaining amount was already in the briefcase but he did not know how much money it was. He further stated that he was informed that the total amount was Rs.36.5 lacs. Therefore, this witness can only have the knowledge of presence of Rs.5.30 lacs in that brief case and for the remaining amount, his testimony is based on hearsay.
CC No. 12/2010 84(Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 14.29 It is also to be noticed that DW14 Bhim Singh in his cross examination had stated that when they were directed to deliver the brief case at Government flat at Greater Kailash i.e. the house of the accused, no other person apart from Mohit and him was present. On the contrary, DW13 Prahlad had deposed that Maa Satya Devi, in his presence, had instructed Mohit and Bhim Singh to deliver money to BRS Rathaur. Thus, the testimony of these witnesses becomes doubtful. 14.30 Another fact which has attracted my mind is that the amount which the witnesses stated to have handed over to Maa Satya Devi is as under: DW9 Rs.2.90 lacs DW10 Rs. 11 Lacs DW11 Rs.11 lacs DW13 Rs. 16 lacs (Including Rs. 5 lacs of DW12) DW15 Rs. 5.30 lacs (Placed by him in the briefcase) Total Rs.46.20 lacs 14.31 Out of this amount, DW13 claims that he was given Rs.5 lacs by Maa Satya Devi for building temple, then the amount still comes to Rs.41.20 lacs, which is much more than the amount recovered from the house of BRS Rathaur. 14.32 It is also to be seen that when activities such as construction of temple are taken up by a trust, a record of such construction, expenditure incurred on construction is maintained to make it a transparent exercise but no such records have been produced.
14.33 In view of the above discussion, I find that the accused through these witnesses has failed to even raise a probability that the amount which was lying in his house did not belong to him or, that it belonged to Maa Satya Devi or that it was CC No. 12/2010 85 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 the same amount which had been collected and handed to Maa Satya Devi by DW8 to DW13. I accordingly find that this amount has to remain in the movable assets of accused BRS Rathaur.
15 The next entry challenged by the accused is entry no. 30 which is regarding the earnest money deposited by the accused on 31.08.2006 vide application no. 16084 in BHS6 Scheme of Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority.
15.1 It is contended on behalf of the accused that no witness has proved this document and this document has been proved by the IO who appeared as PW64. However, he is not a competent witness to prove this document and thus, this amount has not been proved as movable asset of the accused and has to be excluded. 15.2 I have carefully considered the contention. I find this contention of learned counsel for the accused to be correct that this document has not been proved by any competent witness who could have proved such deposition of this amount by the accused and IO was not competent to prove this document and thus, on the basis of document Ex.PW68/4, this amount cannot be added to the movable assets of the accused. I accordingly find that an amount of Rs.2.20 lacs has to be deducted from the movable assets of the accused.
15.3 In view of my above discussion, I find that from the movable assets of the accused as has been assessed by the CBI, following amount has to be deducted:
Movable assets assessed by CBI: Rs. 78,62,235.81 Minus Shares held by accused (entry no. 9): Rs.1,65,731.53 Investments vide entries no. 19,20 & 21: Rs.1,98,000/ CC No. 12/2010 86 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Earnest money vide entry no. 30 Rs.2,20,000/ Total Movable assets:
Rs.72,78,504.30 15.4 Thus, the total assets of the accused comes to Rs.75,42,078 (Rs.2,63,574 + Rs.72,78,504) (Immovable assets + movable assets).
Expenditure
16. The first entry challenged by the accused in the expenditure table is the entry no. 1 which is regarding the kitchen expenses which have been taken by the prosecution as Rs.10,59,990/. This amount has been arrived at as 1/3 rd of the gross salary after tax. It has been contended on behalf of the accused that the CBI did not attempt to quantify the kitchen expenses by any verification and the IO straightaway calculated the kitchen expenses of the accused as 1/3 rd of the net salary of accused BRS Rathaur. It is further contended that accused BRS Rathaur was not having any family and therefore, the principle of 1/3rd could not have been applied on the accused. The accused had been married to Manju Mishra but they separated after 2 ½ years of the marriage and finally they divorced each other in 1997. A daughter, who was born out of this wedlock, resides with her mother at Lucknow and thus, accused BRS Rathaur had no liability with regard to meeting expenses of his wife and daughter, the education of his daughter and their expenses. Further because of his service, 50% of his electricity and telephone bills are being paid by his department and thus, this principle of 1/3 rd should not be applied to the accused. It is therefore, contended that this expenditure has to be at least reduced by ½ i.e. to Rs.5,30,000/.
16.1 On the other hand, learned PP for CBI has contended that there was no CC No. 12/2010 87 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 means to verify this expenditure and therefore, as per the judgments of Hon'ble Supreme Court, this expenditure has to be taken as 1/3 rd of the total income and has been accordingly so taken.
16.2 During the course of arguments, learned counsel for the accused has filed on record an order dated 8.5.1998.
16.3 I have carefully considered this contention and have perused the order of separation passed by Sh. A.K Pathak as (Hon'ble Mr. Justice the then was). This order of separation is of the year 1195. It clearly states that parties had agreed to mutually part and no alimony or maintenance of any sort was to be demanded in future by wife of accused and further that the custody of the child was to remain with the mother. This also specifies that parties had separated. The IO during his cross examination has clearly admitted that he was aware that BRS Rathaur had a matrimonial dispute with his wife and they separated. 16.4 It is very much clear that the IO had not made any effort to verify the household expenditure of the accused which he should have done especially when he had specific knowledge that the accused did not have a family to support and was living alone and had no other liability of maintenance etc towards his wife and children. The IO mechanically applied the principle of taking 1/3 rd of total income of the accused as his household expenses. Such a deduction should only be done as a matter of last resort when there are no means of verifying the household expenditure and doing so mechanically without even taking the relevant factors into consideration cannot be accepted. Therefore, the assessment of the IO on this point has to be disregarded. However, the court has no means to give a particular amount which can be attributed as household expenditure of the accused. At the same time, CC No. 12/2010 88 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 accused cannot be made to suffer because the IO failed to investigate this point especially when because of the peculiar circumstances of the accused, this amount on the face of it seems harsh. I, therefore, find that it will be safe to accept the contention of the accused that this expenditure has to be reduced to Rs.5,30,000/.
17 The next entries challenged on behalf of the accused are the entries no. 5 and 6. These entries are regarding the premium of Rs.5 lacs each paid by BRS Rathaur towards LIC policies nos. 114608320 and 114608321.
17.1 It has been contended on behalf of the accused that these two policies were purchased out of the amount received from old endowment policies and were in continuation of previous policies. PW1 in his testimony has also accepted it.
17.2 I have carefully considered this contention and gone through the testimony of PW1.
17.3 PW1 is Om Prakash. He deposed that from October 2002 to September 2009 he was posted as Asst. Administrative Officer in LIC at Jeewan Parkash Building K. G. Marg, N. Delhi. Vide letter dated 18.3.2008 Ex. PW1/A, he had provided status report in respect of LIC policies in the name of Sh. BRS Rathaur and Ms. Satyawati Devi to CBI. He sent the status report in respect of 08 LIC policies vide Ex. PW1/B. As per record the payments of these LIC policies were made by the policy holders through cheques and none of the payment was received in cash. He proved the four LIC policies in the Name of BRS Rathaur as Ex. PW1/C to Ex. PW1/F. 17.4 During his cross examination, he admitted that in document D40 Ex. PW1/B, there was a LIC Policy bearing No. 114608320 and in the said policy at CC No. 12/2010 89 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 point B, it was mentioned "age proofprevious policy". He admitted that in the same policy at point C, it had been reflected that the date of maturity of the previous policy was August, 2005 and the policy had been reissued on the same date. He also admitted that as per above mentioned LIC policy at the time of reissuance, no cash amount was deposited and the policy was reopened with the premium of Rs. 5 Lakhs mentioned at Point D, which was the maturity amount of the previous policy. In clarification to court question, he deposed that the above mentioned LIC policy was for a total premium of Rs.5 lacs and it was one time premium policy.
17.5 He further admitted that in document D40, Ex. PW1/B, there was a LIC Policy bearing No. 114608321 and in the said policy at point E, it had been mentioned "age proofprevious policy". He also admitted that in the same policy at point F, it was reflected that the date of maturity of the previous policy was August, 2005 and the policy had been reissued on the same date. He also admitted that as per above mentioned LIC policy, at the time of reissuance, no cash amount was deposited and the policy was reopened with the premium of Rs. 5 Lakhs mentioned at Point G, which was the maturity amount of the previous policy. He further admitted that in respect of the above mentioned two policies, the transaction of premium was between two LIC policies as the premium of the previous LIC policy on maturity was reutilized and one time premium policy was reissued.
17.6 The testimony of this witness and the documents clearly establish that the premium towards these policies was received on maturity of previous policies and no new amount was taken out by the accused from his income to invest in these policies. Therefore, this amount cannot be considered as an expenditure incurred by the accused during the check period. I accordingly find that an amount of Rs.10 lacs CC No. 12/2010 90 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 has to be deducted from the total expenditure of the accused.
18 The next challenge raised by the accused is the entry no. 7 in expenditure table. This entry is of Rs.85293/ paid by accused BRS Rathaur as premium towards LIC policy no. 112581769.
18.1 It is contended on behalf of the accused that an amount of Rs.9477/ which is included in this amount was paid on 09.02.2007 i.e. after the check period and thus, has to be deducted from the expenditure of the accused. The relevant witness on this point is PW3.
18.2 PW3 Kuldeep Kumar deposed that vide letter Ex.PW3/A, policy bond, premium history and status of policy no. 112581769 was sent to CBI and the computer generated policy is Ex.PW3/B. The details of premium paid in respect of the said policy was Ex.PW3/C. The certified copy of this policy was Ex.PW3/D. He further deposed that till 11.10.2006, total nine installments were paid for a total amount of Rs.85,293/, as mentioned in Ex.PW3/C. 18.3 During his cross examination, he admitted that as per Ex.PW3/C, the last installment mentioned at point B was paid on 17.01.2006. He further admitted that all the premium installments were for an amount of Rs.9477/.
18.4 I have carefully considered this contention and I find that as per Ex.PW3/C, from 31.03.1999 to 17.01.2006, nine installments of Rs.9477/ each were paid by the accused. The total comes to Rs.85,293/ (Rs.9477 x 9). Therefore, it is very much clear that when the expenditure on this premium was taken by the CBI as Rs.85,293/, the premium paid on 09.02.2007 which was beyond the check period, was not included in the expenditure of the accused. Thus, this contention of the CC No. 12/2010 91 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 accused on this point must fail.
19 The next entry challenged on behalf of the accused is entry no. 13 which pertains to an amount of Rs.11019/ paid by accused BRS Rathaur as security transaction tax through M/s Pee Aar Securities. It is contended on behalf of the accused that this amount has been included by CBI in the investments made by accused in shares and therefore, double entry cannot be made and this amount has to be excluded from the expenditure of the accused.
19.1 In this regard, when PW34 Ved Prakash was shown document Ex.PW20/D, he deposed that it was a statement reflecting the shares worth Rs.5,55,872.46 which were purchased by accused BRS Rathaur through some other broker and sold through his company. He further deposed that out of this amount, Rs.11,019.82 was adjusted towards expenditure and the balance of Rs.5,44,852.64 formed part of shares in hand.
19.2 I have carefully considered this contention. While deciding the issue of investment in shares, the court had only taken into consideration the investment of accused to the tune of Rs.5,44,852/ made through some other broker. Thus, it is very much clear that this amount of Rs.11,019.82 as service transaction tax has not been considered by the court while considering the shares in hand of the accused and thus, when this amount has not been included in the movable assets of the accused, it can safely be considered as an expenditure of the accused and the contention of the accused on this point must fail.
20 The next entry challenged on behalf of the accused is entry no. 16. This entry is of Rs.40,200/ towards transfer fee deposited with Greater Noida Authority CC No. 12/2010 92 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 on 14.6.2001 by Sh. BRS Rathaur on account of transfer of Plot No. A77, Sect Alpha1, Greater Noida in favour of Satya Devi Singh.
20.1 The details of this charge are in file Ex.PW43/B (D47). At page 48, a deposition of an amount of Rs.40,200/ has been reflected. This amount was deposited with Bank of Baroda, Extension Branch, Greater Noida on 04.05.2001. The challan for this deposition is available at page 48 in Ex.PW43/B which does not show or reflect the name of the depositor or, the person who had deposited this amount. However, it is a common knowledge that such charges are not paid by the transferer but are paid by the transferee and therefore, this charge cannot be attributed to BRS Rathaur and this amount has to be deducted from the expenditure of the accused.
20.2 The next three entries challenged on behalf of accused are entries no. 19, 20 and 21. Entry no. 19 is of Rs.480/ paid on 06.08.1998 towards plan processing fee with Greater Noida Authority in respect of plot No. A77, Sec. Alpha, Greater Noida. The deposition of this amount is at page 28 of Ex.PW42/A1. This deposition has been made after accused BRS Rathaur had executed as GPA in favour of Satya Devi in May 1998.
20.3 The entry no. 20 is of Rs.7830/ paid towards water charges in respect of the above said property. Entry no. 21 is of Rs.25/ paid towards completion charges in respect of the above property. These charges have also been paid subsequent to the GPA executed by accused BRS Rathaur in favour of Satya Devi. As it has already been found that the accused not constructed this property and it was constructed by or on behalf of Satya devi and the intention of the accused is fortified by the gift deed which was executed by him, thus, these expenditures cannot be CC No. 12/2010 93 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 attributed to the accused. Therefore, I find that an amount of Rs.8335/ (Rs.480 + Rs.7830 + Rs.25) has to be deducted from the expenditure of the accused.
21 Thus, from the expenditure of the accused as assessed by the CBI, the following amount has to be deducted:
Expenditure assessed by CBI: Rs. 33,68,885/ (rounded off) Minus Kitchen Expenses (entry no. 1): Rs.5,30,000/ LIC Premiums (Entries no. 5 &6) Rs.10,00,000/ Transfer Fee (Entry no. 16) Rs.40,200/ Other expenses (entries no. 19, 20 & 21) Rs.8,335/ Total Expenditure:
Rs.17,90,350/ Thus, the total expenditure of the accused comes to Rs.17,90,350/.
Income 22 It has been contended on behalf of the accused that while calculating the income of the accused, the CBI has not taken into consideration the interest income of Rs.48,154.58 received by the accused from various banks, the dividend income of Rs.21,485.26 received by accused from ICIC Bank and credit redemptions of Rs.4,41,100.95 in respect of Kotak Mutual Fund. The details of these incomes has been given as under: Interest S.No Name of Bank As per CBI As per bank Difference 1 Interest in SB A/c No. 487 3754.38 13400 9654.62 P& S Bank, Bikrikar Bhawan, New Delhi CC No. 12/2010 94 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 2 Interest in ICICI Bank, GK 6174 8579 2405 1 3 Corporation Bank GKII 0.00 775 775 and Kamla Nagar 4 Citi Bank, Connaught Place 0.00 35328.96 35328.96 Total 48154.58 Dividend S.No Name of Bank As per CBI As per bank Difference 1 ICICI Bank GKI 0.00 16527.26 16527.26 2 Reliance Industries 0.00 4958 4958 Total 21485.26 Redemption S.No Name of Bank As per CBI As per bank Difference 1 Credit/ Redemption of SBI, 0 62591.55 62591.55 GKII 2 Credit Redemption of PSB, 0 38259.15 38259.15 Bikrikar Bhawan 3 Credit Redemption of PSB, 0 85582.16 85582.16 Bikrikar Bhawan 4 Various Credits from ICICI 0 79490.09 79490.09 Bank, GKI 5 Various Credits from ICICI 0 175178 175178 Bank, GKI Total 441100.95 22.1 I have carefully considered the contention of the accused and have perused the record. After perusing the record i.e. Ex.PW5/C, Ex.PW28/B, Ex.DW16/2 (Colly), Ex.DW1/1 (colly) and after comparing it, I find the contention CC No. 12/2010 95 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 of the accused to be correct. Thus, I find that a sum of Rs.48,154.58 toward interest income, Rs.21,485.26 towards dividend income and Rs.4,41,100.95 towards redemptions has to be added to the income of the accused.
23 The accused has further contended that while considering the household expenditure of the accused, the gross salary of the accused has been taken as Rs.33,18,128/ and after deduction of tax, this salary comes to Rs.31,79,969/.
However, the total income through salary attributed to the accused for the purpose of calculating his income in the chargesheet has been taken as Rs.28,65,549/. The prosecution has contended that they were not able to collect the accurate salaries for the period 21.07.1994 to 31.08.1994, for the period 06.12.1995 to 31.01.1996, for the period 01.08.2002 to 26.08.2002 and for 24.02.2006 to 03.06.2006. It is therefore, contended that the salary of the accused in the income table has to be taken by the CBI as Rs.31,79,969/ and not Rs.28,65,549/.
23.1 Considering the submissions made and considering the fact that the exact salary of the accused has not been taken and the fact that while calculating the household expenditure, the salary of the accused was taken as Rs.31,79,969/, I find that in all fairness for the purposes of calculating income also, salary of the accused has to be taken as Rs.31,79,969/. I accordingly find that a sum of Rs.3,14,420/ (Rs.31,79,969Rs.28,65,549) has to be added to the income of the accused.
24 It has been contended on behalf of the accused that the income of Maa Satya Devi has not been taken into consideration by the CBI while calculating the income of the accused.
24.1 However, without going into much detail, I find that as no assets of CC No. 12/2010 96 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Maa Satya Devi have been attributed to the accused while deciding this case and thus, income of Maa Satya Devi cannot be added to the income of the accused.
25 Thus, the following amount has to be added to the income of the accused:
Income assessed by CBI: Rs.54,41,350 (rounded off) Plus Interest income Rs.48155 (rounded off) Dividend income Rs.21485 (rounded off) Income from redemptions Rs.441101 (rounded off) Gross salary Rs.314420 Total Income Rs.62,66,511
26 Thus, the total income of the accused comes to Rs.62,66,511/.
27 Thus, in view of assets, expenditure and income as assessed above by the court, the disproportionate assets of the accused, if any, comes as under: Calculation of Disproportionate Assets Assets at the beginning of the check period: Rs.15,391/ Total Assets of the accused: Rs.75,42,078/ Net Assets of the accused : (Rs.7542078Rs.15391)= Rs.75,26,687/ Total Income of the accused: Rs.62,66,511/ Total Expenditure of the accused: Rs. 17,90,350/ CC No. 12/2010 97 (Parveen Singh) Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016 Likely Savings of accused: Rs.62,66,511-Rs.17,90,350 = Rs.44,76,161/ (Income Expenditure) Disproportionate Assets:
(Total AssetsLikely Savings) = Rs. 75,26,687 - Rs.44,76,161 = Rs. 30,50,526/ DA% = DA x 100 Total Income DA% = Rs. 30,50,526 X 100 Rs. 62,66,511 DA% = 48.67%.
28. In view of my above discussion, I find that the accused during the check period has been found in possession of assets to the tune of Rs.30,50,526/, which were disproportionate to his known source of income and for which he could not satisfactorily account for. Resultantly, the accused is convicted u/s 13 (1) (e) of POC Act.
Be heard separately on the point of sentence.
Announced in Open Court (Parveen Singh)
on 17.09.2016. Spl. Judge, CBI02,
(This judgment contains 98 pages New Delhi District, PHC.
and each page bears my signatures)
CC No. 12/2010 98
(Parveen Singh)
Spl. Judge: CBI-02, NDD: 17.09.2016