Patna High Court - Orders
Alok Kumar Singh vs State Of Bihar on 16 December, 2008
Author: Dharnidhar Jha
Bench: Dharnidhar Jha
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA
Cr.Misc. No.46583 of 2008
ALOK KUMAR SINGH
Versus
STATE OF BIHAR
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3. 16.12.2008Heard Sri Tarakant Jha, senior Advocate for the petitioner and the learned A.P.P. for the State.
The petitioner was working as an Assistant in the Irrigation Section of the State Secretariat. The allegation is that the complainant, Kedarnath Jha, the work sarkar in the department, posted somewhere in Bhojpur, had not received his salary from Decmeber, 2005 to June, 2006 and had approached this petitioner by meeting him in that connection. On all the occasions, the petitioner demanded bribe for clearing the payment of salary to him. It is further alleged that the petitioner was demanding Rs.4,000/- in one lump-sum, for obtaining an order of payment of his salary.
The complainant filed a report before the Vigilance police station and that appears verified by an ASI of the police station who submitted a report which appears at page 30 of the present brief which indicates that an amount of Rs.500/- was paid to the petitioner in his -2- presence with further promise of paying the remaining amount next time. A trap party was formed and, accordingly, two independent witnesses were associated with that and the remaining amount was paid into the Secretariat Office, when the petitioner was challenged and apprehended, the money was recovered as per the allegation and as per the description as appearing at page 26 of the brief which is the part of the FIR. The usual test of dipping fingers into a solution of naphthalene, was carried out and that yielded positive result.
Sri Tarakant Jha, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner has submitted that as per the work chart (Annexure-2) appearing at page 63 of the brief, the petitioner was not competent to carry any work concerning that any Work Sarkar and, as such, the very basic allegation appears not acceptable. It was contended that the complainant, Kedarnath Jha appears a man of very bad disposition and a quarrelsome person of such extent that he could be branded as a litigant as well and possibly for reasons which could be stated by him only, the above named complainant has -3- falsely implicated the petitioner in connivance with the vigilance personnel. In support of the above contention, the attention of the court was drawn to Annexure-3 at page 65 of the brief which appears a copy of the report made by the Executive Engineer of the Division in which the complainant was working on evaluation of his work and other dispositions.
The learned counsel appearing for the Vigilance has resisted the prayer and has submitted that there was no reason for the complainant to implicate falsely the petitioner and the allegation could not also be said to be flimsy inasmuch as, there was a pre-trap verification and a report accordingly, which resulted into the formation of a trap party to which two independent persons were associated and ultimately, when the bribe was paid, the money was recovered from the petitioner's pocket.
The contention is that the petitioner was demanding a bribe for doling out a favour which was not part and parcel of his official duty.
The connected documents like the
-4-
complaint petition, the pre-trap verification
report and other relevant documents go to
indicate that the rules were observed in
conducting the trap and the search.
As regards the submission that the
petitioner could not have any reason to demand bribe because he was not ordained to carry out any file work in connection with the payment of salary of the Work Sarkar in question. One could very well utilize the very submission of the learned senior counsel that the establishment of the Executive Engineer and the file in that behalf were entrusted to the petitioner. My personal knowledge and experience in that behalf indicates that when it comes to payment of salary of any employee of an establishment, then allotment on salary of any individual employee could never go to that individual's names. It has only to be sent by the parent department to the head of the department stationed and he has to defray the salaries or other entitlements of an individual employee. So, even if the matter in connection with Work Sarkars could have been entrusted to Umashankar, another Assistant in the -5- Secretariat, the Executive Engineer's, establishment being the main establishment, responsible for paying the salary of the complainant, the complainant has a valid reason to approach the present petitioner. The petitioner appears to misuse his official position which appears by virtue of the strength of holding a file in which he could be entitled to make some noting by demanding bribe. This is the central theme of such offences and considering that I am not inclined to release the above named petitioner on bail.
Petition is dismissed.
( Dharnidhar Jha, J. ) B.Kr.