(C.B.I. vs . Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors on 23 January, 2016

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Delhi District Court

(C.B.I. vs . Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors on 23 January, 2016

Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

IN THE COURT OF : MS. ANU GROVER BALIGA :
SPECIAL JUDGE : CBI [PC ACT]:
DWARKA COURTS : NEW DELHI.

In the matter of :
CBI Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors.
CBI No.: 42/11

FIR No. RC3(A)/98/ACUX
dated 07.04.1998
Branch CBI/ACUX/New Delhi
U/s : 120B r/w 420 IPC & Section 13 (2) r/w
13 (1) (d) of the PC Act, 1988

CENTRAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATIONS (C.B.I)

V e r s u s

1. Sh. Brij Lal Bhadu
S/o Late Sh. Prithvi Raj,
Formerly Private Secretary to Minister of
Agriculture Govt. of India, New Delhi (Retd).
R/o 107, Shivalik Apartments, Alaknanda,
G.K. II, New Delhi .

2. Smt. Bhagwanti Devi
W/o Brij Lal Bhadu
R/o 107, Shivalik Apartments, Alaknanda, GKII,

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New Delhi.

3. Dr. Om Singh Verma
S/o Sh. Gyan Singh
formerly Sr. Scientist, Indian Veterinary
Research Institute. Presently residing at
D7, Ikshpuri, IISR Campus,
Jail Road, Lucknow.

4. Dr. H.P.S Arya.
S/o Sh. Amar Singh
Head Division of Extn. Education,
Indian Veterinary Research
Institute Izat Nagar,Bareilly,
R/o 49, Shastri Nagar, Bareilly.

5. Dr. Pushkar Nath Bhat
S/o Sh. M.N. Bhat
Retired Officer on Special Duty
(Publication & Informatics), ICAR,
Pusa, New Delhi
Ex. Director, IVRI, Izat Nagar, UP
R/o D1/102A, Satya Marg, Chanakya Puri,
New Delhi.

6. Dr. P. N Mathur
S/o Late Sh. S.N. Mathur,
Joint Director (Extn) (Retired), Indian
Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi
R/o S6, Prasad Nagar, Near Patel Nagar,

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Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

Rajendra Place, New Delhi

7. Dr. Chandrika Prasad
S/o Late Sh. R.B. Prasad
Retired Director, National Academy for
Agriculture Research Project, Hyderabad,
R/o EB106, Maya Enclave, New Delhi. 110064

Date of Institution : 23.08.2002
Date on which the case was : 12.10.2011
received on transfer in this court
Date of reserving judgment : 02.01.2016
Date of pronouncement : 23.01.2016

: J U D G M E N T :

1. The allegations for which the aforementioned accused

persons have faced trial in the present case, in a nutshell are that accused

No. 1 Brij Lal Bhadu in the year 1991, being a public servant was posted

as Private Secretary to the then Minister of Agriculture Sh. Balram

Jakhar and that he and his wife i.e. accused No. 2 Bhagwanti Devi were

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owning some barren/usar land at Village Kurar, Distt. Farukhabad, U.P.

and that he, by misusing his own office in conspiracy with officials of

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (hereinafter referred to as ICAR)

and Indian Veterinary Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as IVRI)

managed to get a Project namely "Integrated Livestock Technology and

Extension System for Rural Development" (hereinafter referred to as the

Project) initiated and executed on the land belonging to him and his wife

and got spent Rs. 44 lacs of the Government for the purposes of

developing the said land.

2. To elaborate on the aforementioned allegations, from a

perusal of the chargesheet and the documents filed along with it, the

following material facts can stated to have been interalia discovered

during the investigation of the present case:

a. That accused No. 1 B.L. Bhadu, in the year 1991 was

posted as Private Secretary to the then Agriculture Minister Sh. Balram

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Jhakhar, and in discharge of his official duties was having official

dealings with the officers of ICAR and IVRI.

b. That during the same period of time, accused No. 3

O.S. Verma, accused No. 4, Dr. H.P.S. Arya and accused no.5 were

posted as Senior Scientist, Head of the Division of Extension Education

and Director in IVRI Izzatnagar, Bareilley, UP respectively, whereas

accused No. 6 Dr. P.N. Mathur and accused No. 7 Dr. Chandrika Prasad

were posted as Assistant Director General and Deputy Director General

respectively in the ICAR, New Delhi.

c. That accused No. 1 B.L. Bhadu and his wife i.e

accused No. 2 Bhagwanti Devi along with some of their relatives were

having some barren and some usar land at Village Kurar, District

Farukhabad, UP and that they along with the aforementioned public

officials entered into a criminal conspiracy, the object of which was to

have the said usar/barren land developed at Government expenses.

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d. That in pursuance of the said conspiracy in December

1991, accused No. 1 through the office of Agriculture Minister got

forwarded representations of some farmers of village Kurar to ICAR and

IVRI with the directions the Agriculture Minister desires that a project

for the betterment of the farmers at village Kurar be approved

immediately by these institutes and thereafter accused no. 4 and

5prepared file notings to the effect that a project is to be formulated in

view of the directives of the Agriculture Minister.

e. That thereafter accused No. 3 prepared a Project

proposal entitled "Livestock Technology & Extension System for Rural

Development" to be implemented at Village Kurar. The Project proposal

was thereafter fraudulently got approved from the Extension Council of

IVRI on 13.1.1992, under the chairmanship of accused No. 5 to be funded

from the Agriculture Produce Cess Fund of the ICAR and was then,

under the joint signature of accused O.S.Verma and accused P.N. Bhat

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sent to the ICAR for approval and in the meanwhile, the land of accused

No. 1 and 2 and some of their relatives, known as Kurar Farm in village

Kurar was shown to have been selected for the execution of the Project,

by a Committee constituted by accused P.N. Bhat and comprising of

accused No. 3 and 4 and accused No. 2, on the basis of certain power of

attorneys executed by some of the coowners of the Kurar Farm, was

identified as the person to whom the government was to start paying land

user charges.

f. That in the ICAR, accused No. 7, Dr. C. Prasad who

was the then Dy. Director General (Agriculture Extension), Krishi

Anusandhan Bhawan intentionally in pursuance of the aforementioned

conspiracy by bypassing the laid down procedure, formed a Special

Committee to evaluate the aforesaid Project proposal in the ICAR.

Accused No. 6 Dr. P.N. Mathur, the then ADG (AE) was nominated as

Member Secretary of the said Committee to obtain a favourable approval

of the Project and he succeeded in doing so.

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g. After the sanction of the Project, accused No. 3 and 4

being the Principal Investigators of the Project carried out the

development of the barren land for almost 4 years and intentionally did

not build any infrastructure pertaining to livestock activities and during

the said period, a sum of Rs. 4,14,676/ was also got sanctioned/released

in favour of accused Bhagwanti Devi towards land use charges and that

too wef 15.12.1991 though the Project was sanctioned by ICAR only on

27.4.1992.

h. The conspiracy started coming to the fore when the

Audit Wing of the IVRI raised objections about the payments being made

to Bhagwanti Devi without their being any ownership documents in her

favour and without there being a lease agreement between her and IVRI.

To meet the objections of the Audit Wing accused No.3 produced a letter

purportedly dated 16.12.1991 vide which accused No. 2 had offered the

Kurar Farm for the Project on behalf of all its coowners.(Investigations

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revealed that the said letter had been fraudulently got prepared by the

accused persons in connivance with each other in as much as on 16.12.91

accused No. 2 had not been authorized by any of its co owners to offer the

Farm for the Project).

i. That thereafter though a lease agreement between

Bhagwanti Devi and IVRI was eventually executed on 9.1.1995, a

Technical Committee was constituted to examine the feasibility of further

continuing the Project and the said Committee observed that the basic

emphasis of the Project appeared to be the development of the waste land

and as such the said Project should have gone, to certain other appropriate

institute dealing with the development of waste land. The Committee

further observed that the Project which was started w.e.f. 15.12.1991

appeared to have made hardly any considerable progress as was envisaged

in the Project documents. Thus, going by the progress of the Project as

well as its objectives which were not in conformity, with the mandate of

IVRI and taking into account that almost Rs. 44,00,000/ had already

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been spent only on the development of barren land, the committee thus

recommended for the immediate termination of the Project and the

Project was terminated on 31.03.1996.

3. Based on the allegations made in the charge sheet and

the documents filed along with it, one of the Ld. Predecessors of this

Court framed charges against the accused persons for having conspired

to cheat the government and for having put it to a loss of about Rs. 44 lacs

and thus for having committed offences punishable under section 420 IPC

and section 120B IPC. Further, all the accused persons except accused

No. 2, were also charged for having misused/abused their public offices to

cause gain gain to accused no. 1 and 2 and thereby for having committed

criminal misconduct as defined under section 13 (1) (d) and punishable

under section 13 (2) of the PC Act. In addition, accused No. 1 and 2 were

also charged for having cheated the ICAR and IVRI by fraudulently

preparing the letter dated 16.12.1991 and dishonestly inducing them to

approve and implement the Project in their land and thereby for having

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committed the offences punishable under section 420 IPC.

PROSECUTION EVIDENCE:

4. In order to prove the aforementioned charges, the

prosecution has examined 50 witnesses in all.

5. The witnesses examined by the prosecution to

substantiate their case can be broadly categorized in six categories.

6. The first category of witnesses includes the various

officials/employees of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)

and the same are :

(i) PW5 Sh. R.C. Puri, Assistant in Agricultural Extension
Division.
(ii) PW6 Sh. Dinesh Kumar Sinha, LDC in Extension Education
Section.

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Dated : 23.01.2016.

(iii) PW9 Dr. Aditya Narain Shukla, Assistant Director General,
Krishi Vigyan Kendra.
(iv) PW10 Sh. N.P.Singh, Senior Scientist in Agricultural
Extension Division.
(v) PW17 Dr. Kedar Nath Singh, Assistant Director General,
National Agriculture Research Project.
(vi) PW19 Sh. Hansraj, Information System Officer.
(vii) PW20 Prof. Virender Lal Chopra, Director General.
(viii) PW21 Sh. Harpal, LDC.
(ix) PW22 Sh. Vikram Singh, Under Secretary.
(x) PW34 Dr. M.L.Madan, Deputy Director General, Animal
Science Division.
(xi) PW35 Sh. Prunajan Dass, Dy. Director General.
(xii) PW39 Sh. S.K. Singh, Legal Advisor.
(xiii) PW41 Sh. Tarsem Sagar, Dealing Assistant, Coordination
Section.
(xiv) PW42 Dr. R.N. Rai, Zonal Coordinator.
(xv) PW45 Sh. K.D. Upreti, Under Secretary, Department
of Agriculture & Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture.
(xvi) PW49 Sh. Prabhat Chand Sharma, Sr. Scientist (AE), Division
Agriculture Extension.
(xvii) PW50 Sh. S.K. Behra, Dy. Secretary.

7. The testimony of all these witnesses is not being

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referred herein for the sake of brevity. The said witnesses have more or

less proved the record maintained by ICAR with respect to the Project

and the relevant records have been referred to in the latter part of this

judgment.

8. The second category of witnesses include the

officials/employees of Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) and

the same are:

(i) PW2 Sh. Rajbal Singh, Farm Assistant.
(ii) PW4 Sh. Anil Kumar Sharma, Sr. Clerk, Extension Education
Division.
(iii) PW7 Sh. S.P. Singh, Assistant Administrative Officer.
(iv) PW8 Sh. Pran Nath Kaul, Principal Scientist, Division of
Extension Education.
(v) PW18 Sh. Sachidanand Jha, Chief Administrative Officer.
(vi) PW28 Sh. B.D. Sati, Superintendent.
(vii) PW29 Sh. G.D.Amola, Sr. Clerk in Budget Section.
(viii) PW31Sh.Ashok Kumar Gupta, Extension Education Division.
(ix) PW32 Sh. O.N. Kunzru, Joint Director (Extension).

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(x) PW33 Sh. Vijay Krishan,Officer, ILTE Project.
(xi) PW37 Sh. P.C. Jacob, Chief Administrative Officer.
(xii) PW43 Sh. Prem Shankar, Administrative Officer (Vigilance).

9. The testimony of all these witnesses is also not being

referred herein for the sake of brevity. The said witnesses have more or

less proved the record maintained by IVRI with respect to the Project and

the relevant records have been referred to in the latter part of this

judgment.

10. The third category of witnesses include the

witnesses examined by the prosecution from the Central Soil Salinity

Research Institute (CSSRI) to prove that Kurar Farm was barren. This

category includes :

(i) PW23 Dr. R.C. Sharma, Principal Scientisthe has proved the
report prepared with respect to the soil samples taken from the
land selected for the Project.
(ii) PW44 Sh. J.K. Kewalramani, Sr. Administrative Officer.

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11. The fourth category of witnesses include the

farmers/agriculturists/teachers/persons residing in village Kurar, District

Farukabad and the same are :

(i) PW3 Pramod Singh.
(ii) PW11 Sh. Ajay Pal Singh.
(iii) PW12 Sh. Zahid Khan
(iv) PW13 Sh. Achhe Lal
(v) PW14 Sh. Amar Singh
(vi) PW15 Sh. Tej Ram Singh
(vii) PW24 Sh. Rambir Singh
(viii) PW25 Sh. Rajbir Singh.
(ix) PW26 Sh. Tashdduk Ali Khan
(x) PW27 Sh. Kaptan Singh
(xi) PW40 Avdhesh Dixit

12. The said witnesses have deposed about the

representations purportedly made on their behalf to the Agriculture

Minister.

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13. The fifth category of witnesses includes the three co

owners of Kurar Farm and the same are :

(i) PW36 Sh. Baljeet Singh.
(ii) PW46 Sh. Inderjeet Singh.
(iii) PW47 Smt. Kalawati.

They have proved the power of attorney documents

executed by them in favour of accused No. 1.

14. The sixth category of witnesses include those who

remained associated with the investigation of the present case in one form

or the other, at the request of the investigating officer and also includes

the investigating officer and PW50 who was examined to prove the

sanction granted by the competent authority for prosecution of accused

No. 3 and 4. This category consists of :

(i) PW1 Nafeez Ahmed working as Urdu Translator, Tehsil

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Kayamganj, District Farukhabad, UP he has proved nakal khasra of the

land in question i.e. Kurar Farm

(ii) PW16 Dr. P.S. Sirohi, Senior Scientist, Department of

Floriculture and Landscaping he has interalia deposed that he was a

member of the Committee formed by the DG, ICAR and has proved the

proceedings of the Committee held on 26.03.1992.

(iii) PW30 Dr. B.B.L. Mathur, Incharge Research Coordination &

Monitoring he has interalia deposed that he had attended two

proceedings of the Extension Council of IVRI held on 23.03.1994 and

28.09.1994 wherein the Project was reviewed. The proceedings of the

Council and the report prepared by it have been duly proved by this

witness.

(iv) PW38 ViquarulHasan, Asstt Record Keeper, Collectorate,

District Farukabad, UPhe has proved the record maintained in the office

of Collectorate of District Farukhabad with respect to Kurar Farm.

(v) PW48 Sh. Dhiraj Khetarpal, Inspector, CBI, ACUX, New Delhi

is the main investigating officer he has deposed about the entire

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investigation conducted by him and he has also proved the seizure memos

vide which he had seized the relevant records in the present case.

(vi) PW50 Sh. S.K.Behra, Deputy Secretary, ICAR he has proved the

sanction granted by the competent authority for the prosecution of

accused No. 3 and 4.

15. The evidence of the aforementioned witnesses was

put to the accused persons and their statements were recorded under

section 313 Cr.P.C. In the said statements, the accused persons denied

that they had committed any offence. In particular, accused No. 1 and 2

denied that they had in any manner, cheated the government or connived

with the other accused persons to get their land developed. The accused

No. 3 to 7 who were the officials of IVRI and ICAR, interalia, claimed

that the Project had been dealt with them in the regular course of duties

and that the Project had been initiated and executed only in public

interest.

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16. In support of their defence, the accused persons have

examined 10 witnesses. The accused No. 6 P.N. Mathur has also tendered

his statement on oath under section 315 Cr.P.C to prove his innocence.

17. After the evidence was concluded on behalf of both

the prosecution and the defence, on behalf of the prosecution, Ld.

Prosecutors Ms. Shashi and Sh. Harsh Mohan Singh have advanced final

arguments (initially Sh. Singh had filed written submissions but later on,

on the posting of Ms. Shashi in this Court, it is she who has mainly

advanced the final arguments). On behalf of the accused persons 1 and 2,

Ld. Counsel Sh. Anand Mishra, on behalf of accused No. 4, Ld. Counsel

Sh. A.K. Dass, on behalf of accused No. 5, Ld. Counsel Sh. Dhirendra

Singh, and on behalf of accused 6 and 7, Ld Counsel Sh. Ehraz Zafar have

advanced final arguments and have also filed written submissions.

Accused No. 3 Om Singh Verma has argued in person and on behalf of

accused No. 7 Chandrika Prasad written submissions have also been filed

on record by Ld. Counsel Sh. R.N.P. Sinha.

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18. Ld. Prosecutors have vehemently contended that the facts

of the present case are so stark and self revealing that there can arise no

doubt about the guilt of the accused persons. They have submitted that the

files of ICAR and IVRI pertaining to the Project in question containing

the minutes of various meetings held and notings made by the accused

persons and other officials of ICAR and IVRI and the reports tendered by

various experts/committees, all duly proved on record during trial clearly

point out how accused No. 1 abused his position as the Private Secretary

to the Ministry of Agriculture to get his own land developed at

government cost and how the other coaccused persons, the officials of

ICAR and IVRI in conspiracy with him while holding offices as public

servants helped him achieve this illegal objective. According to the Ld.

Prosecutors, the voluminous documentary evidence brought on record

during trial proves each and every allegation made against the accused

persons in the chargesheet and reveals how the Project was got initiated,

approved and executed with the sole purpose of getting the land of B.L.

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Bhadu and his wife developed under the garb of public interest. (Since the

allegations made in the chargesheet have already been narrated

hereinabove the same are not being repeated here and the documentary

evidence relied upon by the prosecution in support of the said allegations

will be discussed point wise in the latter part of this judgment). Apart

from the documentary evidence the Ld. Prosecutors have also urged that

this court must bear in mind that had the accused B.L. Bhadu been an

honest public official, he, instead of endorsing a letter directing the ICAR

and IVRI to initiate the Project at the earliest, would have informed his

department that he has a conflict of interest and that he intends to offer

his land and that of his wife and his relatives for a government Project. It

has been vehemently contended that in the absence of a conspiracy it is

absolutely unacceptable that in the entire land existing in the Village

Kurar, the IVRI and ICAR chose the land of the accused No. 1, who was

then the Private Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, to carry out the

Project which resulted only in benefiting the said land and costing the

government Rs. 44 lacs.

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19. In support of their contentions that the material on

record is sufficient to prove that the accused persons are guilty of

entering into a criminal conspiracy, the Ld. Prosecutors have relied up on

the following judgments:

(i) State of Maharashtra Etc. Vs. Som Nath Thapa, 1996 AIR 1744.
(ii) Ajay Aggarwal Vs. Union of India & Ors. 1993 AIR 1637

20. In rebuttal to the submissions made by Ld. Public

Prosecutors, the Ld Defence counsels representing the accused persons

who were officials of the ICAR and IVRI namely accused No. 3 to

accused No. 7 have made certain common contentions which are being

taken note of here. (In addition to the aforementioned main common

contentions, separate additional contentions have also been made on

behalf of each of the accused persons namely 37, which for the sake of

brevity are not being referred to hereinabove and will be dealt in detail in

the latter part of the judgment). The same are:

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a. The present FIR is nothing but a result of political

rivalry. According to the Ld. Defence counsels the Project in question had

been started in the year 1991 on the directions of the then Hon'ble

Agriculture Minister Sh. Balram Jakhar and Sh. Salman Khurshid and

due to a change in the political scenario, at the behest of one Sh.

Ramashray Prasad Singh (MP) belonging to a rival political party, the

present FIR was got registered to embarrass the said leaders and the

Project was also got terminated under the said political pressure.

b. The Project was initiated in public interest, to

provide technical know how right at the farmers door, so as to improve

the socioeconomic conditions of the rural population and to help in

transfer of technology to the farmers and that therefore, no offences of

misusing or abusing their position can be stated to have been committed

by the accused persons who were public servants. According to the Ld.

Defence Counsels, none of the accused persons who were officials of the

IVRI and ICAR can be held guilty of criminal misconduct for they had

only done their official duties and that the prosecution has not produced

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any evidence to show that due to any act of the accused persons any

gain/benefit had accrued to a third person.

c. The Project was approved finally by the Director

General, ICAR, Dr. V.L Chopra in concurrence with financial advisor to

the Government of India Sh. N.S Bakshi and that therefore no criminal

liability can be fastened on the accused persons merely because they had

proposed the Project and had applied for its sanction/approval. The

contention being that had there been any illegality in the formulation of

the Project, the same would have never been approved by the highest

authority. It has also been pointed out that even at the stage of initial

formulation of the Project, a four member special committee at the ICAR

had evaluated the Project received from the IVRI and had recommended

for the implementation of the Project with a few amendments. The

contention therefore is that if none of the members of the said high

powered committee have been made accused in the present case, how can

then only the principal investigator of the Project and those officials of

the ICAR and the IVRI who had merely moved the files for

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approval/processing can be stated to have acted at the behest or/in

connivance with accused No. 1 and 2.

d. The Project was viable when it was approved on

paper and only because it turned out to be nonviable/nonprofitable in its

execution, it cannot be inferred that it was not initiated in public interest.

It has been pointed out that on many occasions various research Projects

undertaken by the ICAR and IVRI turned out to be failures but the said

fact has never been taken as a yardstick to allege that the research was not

done in the public interest. It is thus the contention that merely because

losses were caused to the government in execution of the Project, criminal

liability cannot be fastened upon the accused persons, who were merely

scientists involved in research and development work.

21. In support of the aforementioned contentions namely

that the offence of criminal misconduct is not made out at all against

accused No. 37, reliance has been placed by the Ld. Defence Counsels on

the following judgments:

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 25 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

(i) C.K. Jafar Sharif Vs. State, AIR 2013 SC 48
(ii) K.R Purushottam Vs. State of Kerela, AIR 2006 SC 35
(iii) Mahesh Joshi Vs. State (CBI) 2002 Crl LJ 97
(iv) State of Himachal Pradesh Vs. Jai Lal & Ors.,1999 Supp (2) SCR
318.
(v) Judgment dated 28.2.2003 pronounced by Hon'ble Supreme Court
in Crl, A. No. 372/01 in case titled as R. Balakrishna Pillai Vs. State
of Kerela.
(vi) S.V.L Murthy Vs. State AIR 2009 SC 2717
(vii) A.Subair Vs. State of Kerela V (2009) SLT 272
(viii) P.K.Gupta Vs. CBI, 2011 (4) JCC 2352
(ix) C.K. Damodaran Nair Vs. Govt of India, 1997 Crl L.J. 739
(x) Chittaranjan Das Vs. State of Orissa, 2011 (7) SCALE 461
(xi) State of Punjab & Ors. V. Ram Singh, Ex. Constable AIR 1992 SC
2188

22. As regards accused No. 1 and 2, Ld. Counsel for

these accused persons, Sh. Anand Mishra has contended that none of the

acts being attributed to accused No. 1 and accused No. 2 can in any

manner be stated to be sufficient to prove that they had conspired with the

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 26 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

officials of ICAR and IVRI to get their land developed at the cost of the

government. According to the Ld. Counsel Sh. Mishra, the fact that it was

the land of the accused No. 1, 2 and their relatives, that was approved for

the Project does not at all prove that there was a conspiracy between the

accused No. 1, 2 and the officials of ICAR and IVRI. It has been pointed

out by the Ld. Counsel that the depositions of all the farmers/residents of

Village Kurar, District Farukabad reveals that it was on the demand of

these local villagers that the officials of IVRI had held a camp in Village

Kurar. He has also pointed out that one Avdhesh Dixit, a resident of

Farooqabad, PW40 has clarified that he knew the family of accused No.

1 and 2 and the fact that they were holding a large tract of land in Village

Kurar, and therefore, he only had brought the officials of IVRI to the said

tract of land for holding their demonstration and had thereafter also

contacted accused No. 2 for offering her land for the Project. Thus,

according to the Ld. Counsel Sh. Mishra there is nothing questionable

that it was the land of accused No. 1 and 2 that was chosen for the

Project. It has also been pointed out by the Ld. Defence Counsel that the

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 27 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

prosecution has not brought any evidence to show that the rate of rent that

was agreed to be given by IVRI to accused No. 2 was exorbitant or that

some other such large tract of land was available in the village, which

would have been better suited for the Project and therefore his contention

is that no favours can be shown to have been granted to accused No. 1 and

2 by the officials of IVRI and ICAR in choosing their land for the Project.

23. His further submission is that merely because the

start of the Project was shown to be 16.12.1991 despite it having been

sanctioned only on 27.4.1992, in no manner proves that it was at the

behest of accused No. 1 and 2 that the start of the Project was shown to be

16.12.1991 by the officials of ICAR and IVRI. His submission in this

regard is that since the land in question was taken for a demonstration

camp on 15.12.1991, the IVRI officials on their own had taken the starting

date of the Project as the said date. He has further contended that as far

as question of reclamation of land was considered, the Project was for

reclamation of land for livestock development of land, and any land used

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 28 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

for the said Project would have gone through the similar procedure. Ld

Counsel has also contended that in fact accused No. 2 suffered losses due

to the termination of the Project before its due date and that she infact is

entitled to damages and had even sent a notice in this regard to the

Director IVRI.

24. As regards the allegations of cheating made against

the accused No. 1 and 2 in the chargesheet and the charges framed in

respect of the same, Ld. Counsel Sh. Mishra has submitted that the

charges of cheating framed against these two accused persons namely that

they had vide letter dated 16.12.91 falsely claimed that they were

authorized by the coowners of the land in question to offer the said land

to the government and hence had cheated the government and had caused

wrongful loss of 44 lacs to it, has not been at all proved by the

prosecution. His detailed submission in this regard has been spelt out and

dealt with in the latter part of the judgment and is not being referred to

herein for the sake of brevity.

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 29 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

25. In addition, Ld. Defence Counsel Sh. Mishra in

rebuttal to the facts pointed out by the Ld. PP has vehemently contended

that by no stretch of imagination can it be stated that accused No. 1 had a

conflict of interest in the matter of allotment of the Project. His

submission is that the land had been offered by the wife of accused No. 1

and not by himself and that therefore accused No. 1 was under no

obligation to have informed his employer department that his land was

being considered for a Project of the government. He has pointed out that

being the Private Secretary to the then Minister of Agriculture, Sh.

Balram Jakhar, it was the duty of accused No. 1 to have forwarded the

communication Ex. PW21/1 of Sh. Balram Jakhar to ICAR and that the

mere endorsement of accused No. 1 on the said communication can in no

manner be interpreted to make an inference that he was directing the

ICAR or the IVRI to start the Project on his own land. According to the

Ld. Counsel the aforementioned endorsement being relied upon by the

Ld. PP was a mere administrative act of accused No. 1 in the course of his

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 30 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

duties. It is the submission of Ld. Counsel Sh. Mishra that there is not an

iota of evidence to show that accused No. 1 and 2 had a meeting of minds

with the officials of ICAR and IVRI to get their land developed through a

Project of ICAR and IVRI.

26. It has also been vehemently contended by Ld. Counsel

Sh. Mishra that this chargesheet has been malafidely filed by the CBI

against the accused No. 1 despite the CBI being aware that there was no

case made out against this accused. Ld. Counsel has pointed out that it is

a matter of record that when the CBI had applied for seeking sanction to

prosecute this accused, the same was refused by the competent authority

on 24.7.2002 and to circumvent the said refusal, this chargesheet was filed

on 23.08.2002 after the retirement of accused No. 1 on 31.07.2002. Ld.

Counsel had further pointed out that no fresh material was collected

during the period 24.07.2002 to 23.08.2002 and has therefore contended

that once the sanction was refused by the competent authority on the

basis of same material, the prosecution could not have filed the

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 31 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

chargesheet after the retirement of the accused in view of the law laid

down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case titled and reported as

Chitranjan Dass V State of Orrissa, 2011 (7) SCALE 461. It has been

further submitted by the Ld. Counsel that a petition was filed before the

Hon'ble High Court in this regard and the same, in view of the fact that

the present case was at the stage of final arguments, was withdrawn on

26.5.2014 with liberty to raise the plea afresh at the time of final

arguments. His contention therefore is that this court should now in view

of the judicial dicta laid down by the Apex Court acquit the accused B.L

Bhadu.

27. This Court has carefully considered the submissions

made by all the Ld. Counsels. It is relevant to point out that apart from

accused No. 1, accused No. 3 and 4 have not seriously challenged the

sanction accorded by the competent authority to prosecute them. The

sanction for their prosecution has been proved by PW50 S.K. Behra,

Deputy Secretary, ICAR as Ex. PW48/9. Further, admittedly, accused

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 32 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

No. 5 to 7 had already retired from government service as on the date of

filing of the charge sheet and therefore no sanction for their prosecution

was required under the provisions of the PC Act and further since they

have been charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy and cheating

which acts cannot be stated to have anything to do with discharge of their

official duties it had been contended by the Ld. Public Prosecutors that no

sanction was required for their prosecution even under section 197 Cr.P.C.

The said contention of the Ld. Public Prosecutors was not at all

challenged on behalf of these accused persons. With respect to the

contentions made on behalf of accused No. 1 challenging his prosecution

on the ground that the sanction for the same was once refused, while he

was in service, suffice is to state that the said contention has been rejected

by two Ld. Predecessors of this Court vide orders dated 14.11.2006 and

07.06.2013 and admittedly no additional evidence has come on record

thereafter during trial to suggest that the said issue requires fresh

consideration/review. This court has nothing to add to the said orders of

the Ld. Predecessors of this Court vide which it has been clearly held that

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 33 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

there is no illegality in filing of the present chargesheet after the

retirement of accused No. 1.

28. Coming now to the offences for which the present

trial has been conducted, as narrated hereinabove, the accused persons

have been interalia charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy,

namely, an agreement to get the land of accused No. 1 and 2 developed at

the expense of the government. According to the contentions put forward

by the prosecution, in the said conspiracy, the role of accused No. 3, 4 &

5 as officials of IVRI was to hold a camp at village Kurar and give

impetus to the requirement of a Project at village Kurar and thereafter

formulate a Project and get the land of accused No. 2, wife of accused No.

1, selected for the said Project, the role of accused No. 2 was merely to

sign on the necessary documents offering her land for the said Project,

the role of accused No. 1 being the Personal Secretary to the Agriculture

Minister was to put pressure through his Ministry upon ICAR to support

and approve the Project proposed by IVRI and the role of accused No. 6

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 34 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

& 7, being the officials of ICAR was to make sure that the Project is

approved. No doubt it is being rightly contended by the Defence that no

evidence has been brought on record by the prosecution to prove that the

accused persons had infact agreed to play the aforementioned roles but it

is trite to state that though the meeting of minds of two or more persons

for doing an illegal act or the act by illegal means is sine qua non to the

criminal conspiracy, direct evidence to prove the said agreement is

seldom forthcoming, for generally said agreements are hatched in secrecy.

It has therefore been laid down by the Hon'ble Superior Courts of this

country in a catena of judgments that the express agreement or the actual

meeting of the persons of conspiracy or the actual words of

communication is not required to be proved. What is essential for the

prosecution to prove is some kind of physical manifestation of the

agreement and the same can be proved by circumstantial evidence or

inferred from the acts of the parties to the conspiracy. Therefore, the

contention of the learned defence counsels that since the prosecution has

not brought any direct evidence of the accused persons meeting each

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 35 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

other and reaching an agreement, it has failed to prove its charges against

them, is without any merit for what needs to be examined is what are the

circumstances or the acts of the accused persons in the present case that

the prosecution is relying upon to prove the charge of conspiracy against

them.

a. The first of the said circumstances being relied upon

by the prosecution is the issuance of a circular dated 9.12.1991 Ex.

PW3/A by the accused No. 4 H.P.S. Arya. Vide this circular the accused

H.P.S Arya informed that the Director of IVRI i.e accused No. 5 P.N

Bhatt wishes to hold a meeting with 10 scientists mentioned in the said

circular on 10.12.1991 to discuss a plan, the details of which were

attached with the said circular. A perusal of the said plan shows that the

Director of IVRI wanted the scientists of IVRI to hold a one day farm

exhibition at Village Kurar for the purposes of clinical treatment of sick

animals belonging to the farmers of the said village and also for

publicizing the activities of IVRI in and around Kurar Village. Now the

prosecution is relying upon this circular to contend that this was issued by

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 36 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

the accused No. 4 H.P.S. Arya purportedly on the directions of accused

No. 5 P.N. Bhatt in pursuance of the conspiracy that they alongwith

accused No. 3 had entered with accused No. 1 and 2 to develop their land

at Village Kurar at government expenses. According to the prosecution

the sole intention of holding the camp at Kurar Village, which was

situated in a very interior and isolated area, was to start the process of

initiating the Project in Village Kurar on the land of accused No. 1 and 2.

According to the Ld. Public Prosecutors, the plan of these accused

persons was to obtain, during the holding of the said camp, applications

from the farmers/residents of Village Kurar addressed to the Minister of

Agriculture requesting him to start a Project in their village of the kind

that would suit the purpose of developing the land of accused No. 1 and

2. They have pointed out that the testimony of PW3 Pramod Singh,

PW11 Ajay Pal Singh, PW12 Zahid Khan, PW13 Achhe Lal, PW14

Amar Singh and PW15 Tej Ram Singh clearly reveals that under the

garb of holding the camp at Village Kurar the accused persons No. 3, 4

and 5 wanted to get the residents of Village Kurar to sign on the aforesaid

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 37 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

applications prepared by these very accused persons. Ld. Prosecutors

have also submitted that the illegality of the circular in question can also

be gouged from the fact that the minutes prepared by accused H.P.S. Arya

on 10.1.1992, a part of the file D16 reveal that the reasons given for

holding the camp at the Kurar Farm on 15.12.1991 are stated to be the

directives received from the Minister of Agriculture/ICAR, though

admittedly no such directives were admittedly received by the IVRI

before 18.12.1991.

29. In rebuttal to the aforementioned contentions of the

Ld. PP, Ld Defence Counsels Sh. A.K. Dass and Sh Dhirendra Singh have

submitted that that there is absolutely no illegality in the issuance of the

circular Ex. PW3/A inasmuch as the same was done by accused H.P.S.

Arya on the directions of the accused P.N. Bhat and that both these

accused person were merely doing their official duties. According to the

defence, the IVRI in its usual course of activities used to hold camps in

various villages and the issuance of the circular was merely to discuss the

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 38 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

holding of a camp at Village Kurar after some farmers of the district had

personally come to the office of IVRI at Bareilly in the first week of

December and had met various officials of IVRI and had requested the

holding of a camp in their village. Ld. Counsels have relied upon the

testimony of PW40/DW7 Dixit to contend that his deposition clearly

proves that farmers of District Farukhabad had come to the office of IVRI

Bareilly to make the aforementioned request in pursuance of which the

circular Ex. PW3/A had been issued and the camp had been held in

Village Kurar on 15.12.1991.

30. In the considered opinion of this Court the evidence

on record clearly supports the contentions of the Ld. Prosecutors for CBI

and belies the contentions of the Ld. Defence Counsels. A careful

consideration of the depositions of the farmers examined by the

prosecution namely PW3 Pramod Singh, PW11 Ajay Pal Singh, PW12

Zahid Khan, PW13 Achhe Lal, PW14 Amar Singh and PW15 Tej Ram

Singh clearly brings out the reason for which the accused persons No. 3,

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 39 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

4 and 5 were so interested in holding a camp in Village Kurar. The

deposition of all these aforementioned witnesses who are residents of

Village Kurar is more or less to the effect that in the year 1991 a camp

was organized at Kurar Village for distributing medicines for domestic

animals and it is in this camp that the persons who had organized the

camp had taken their signatures on some applications on the pretext that

if the said applications are signed, the villagers of Village Kurar would

get good medicines for their livestock and the technical know how to

improve their agricultural produce. These witnesses have identified the

applications got signed from them at the said camp as mark A, Ex.

PW11/A, Ex. PW12/A, Ex. PW13/A, Ex PW14/A and Ex. PW15/A.It

is very interesting to note that the applications mark A, Ex. PW11/A to

Ex. PW15/A are all shown to be dated prior to the holding of the camp

on 15.12.1991 and are a part of the bunch of the applications that were

forwarded from the office of Agriculture Minister to the Director, IVRI

on 18.12.1991 along with the forwarding letter Ex. PW5/A1 with the

directions that the request of the farmers may be considered

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 40 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

sympathetically. The said record and depositions of PW3, PW11 to

PW15 therefore clearly point out that infact the IVRI officials in question

first themselves obtained the aforementioned applications from the

farmers of Village Kurar, handed over the same to accused No. 1 who

held the important position of Personal Secretary to the Agriculture

Minister and he got it forwarded through his Addl. Personal Secretary

back to the IVRI so as to show it on files that the camp in Village Kurar

was held on the directions of the Agriculture Minister. The

aforementioned evidence brought on record, in the considered opinion of

this Court does prove the role of accused No. 3, 4 & 5 in getting a camp

organized at village Kurar and making sure that they obtain

representations from the residents of the said village to the Agriculture

Minister and thereby laying down a foundation for the initiation of the

Project in the village Kurar. In the considered opinion of this Court the

depositions of the aforementioned witnesses do infact support the

contention of the prosecution that the farmers of village Kurar, a village

situated in a very backward area, had no clue about the existence of the

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 41 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

office of IVRI in Bareilly and therefore there was no occasion for them to

have gone to the said office to make any representations to the IVRI

officials and it is only when a camp was held in their village by the IVRI,

they were made to sign on applications provided by IVRI officials

themselves and they did so in the hope that they would be given

information about the latest technology to improve the health of their

animals. The only contention made on behalf of accused No. 3, 4 and 5

with respect to the depositions of the aforementioned witnesses is that

none of the said farmers identified them as the persons who had got the

applications signed from them and therefore their contention is that no

inference can be drawn that they had got the said applications signed.

According to them the minister Salman Khursheed could have also got

the same signed. In the considered opinion of this court, the mere fact

that the farmers of Village Kurar after a gap of 1617 years could not

point out as to which persons had infact taken their signatures on the said

applications is hardly relevant for the Defence is not disputing their

testimony that a camp for distributing medicines for their animals had

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 42 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

been held in their village and they were made to sign the applications in

question on the pretext that it would help them in obtaining information

about new technology to improve the health of their animals. The

contention of the Ld. Defence counsels that these witnesses could be

referring to the camps being held by Salman Khursheed is absolutely

without any basis for no such suggestions have been put to PW3, PW11

to PW15 in this regard and no such inference can be drawn at all, as

sought to be done by the Ld Defence counsels, merely from the statement

of one of them that Salman Khursheed had also visited their village

during the camp period. The camp being referred to by them is obviously

the camp that was held by the IVRI for there is nothing brought on record

by the accused persons to show that Salman Khurshid was also holding

camps in Village Kurar to distribute medicines to animals.

31. Further, the contention of the accused No. 3, 4 and 5

that a camp at Kurar was only held because some farmers had come to the

office of IVRI at Bareilly also cannot be believed for no such fact finds

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 43 of 117
Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

mention in any minutes/file notings whatsoever, maintained by the

officials of IVRI with respect to the Project in question. The minutes of

the meeting held on 10.12.1991 does not mention any such fact and the

file notings pointed out by the Ld. Prosecutors reveal that the reason for

holding of the camp on 15.12.1991 by IVRI was purportedly shown to be

the directives of the Agriculture Minister. It does appear that only on

realizing that the said notings mentioned the directives from the

Agriculture Minister having been received on 18.12.1991 and the camp

having been already held on 15.12.1991, did the accused persons think of

coming up with this defence. As regards the deposition of DW7,

Avadhesh Dixit strangely this person was infact examined initially as a

prosecution witness (PW40) and then summoned as a defence witness.

This person has deposed that he was the representative of Salman

Khurshid in District Farukhabad and that he knew that accused No. 1 and

2 owned huge tract of land in Village Kurar and that he had convinced

them to offer their land for the government Project for the benefit of other

farmers. In the opinion of this court, the aforementioned facts brought on

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Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

record by this witness point out that he could have been instrumental in

coordinating between accused No. 1 & 2 and the IVRI officials namely

accused No. 3,4 and 5 and infact also obtaining a recommendation for the

Project from Sh. Salman Khurshid, the then MP of Farukhabad and thus

helping the accused persons achieve their illegal agreement and that could

be the reason that he has chosen to depose falsely that he alongwith some

farmers had gone to the office of IVRI Bareilly to request that a camp be

held at Village Kurar. If infact he alongwith some farmers had come to

the office of IVRI Bareilly then atleast one of the said farmers could have

been summoned by the accused persons in their defence or atleast an

effort would have been made to name any one such farmer. The reliance

of Ld Defence counsels in this regard on the representations of some

witnesses, PW24 to PW27, residents of village Kurar, namely Ex.

PW24/A to PW27/A is completely misplaced for these representations

are purportedly dated post the camp date. On the other hand, as narrated

hereinabove the prosecution has examined 6 farmers who have supported

the allegations made by it. In view of the discussion herein above, this

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Judgment in the matter of:-
CC No. 42/11
(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

Court is of the considered opinion that the prosecution has been able to

prove that the circular in question was issued by accused No. 4 and 5

illegally only to help the accused No. 1 and 2.

32. The second circumstance being relied upon by the

prosecution to prove that there was infact a conspiracy between the

officials of IVRI and accused No. 1 and 2 is the fact that though the

Project was administratively and financially sanctioned by ICAR only on

27.04.1992, the IVRI officials namely accused No. 3, 4 and 5 deliberately

and illegally sought to show the date of start of the Project as 16.12.1991

only to favour accused No. 1 and 2. According to the Ld. Prosecutors the

intention behind the said move by these accused persons was to keep the

selection process for the Project land within their control so that no other

authority could question the said selection and also to ensure that accused

persons No. 1 and 2 get entitled to receive rent from the earliest date

possible. Ld. Prosecutors have contended that as per the relevant

guidelines applicable to the Projects funded by ICAR namely the

"General Guidelines for the Formulation, Processing, Scrutiny, Sanction,

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(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

Implementation and Evaluation of Research Schemes to be financed by

the Indian Council of Agricultural Research from its Agricultural

Produce Cess Funds" exhibited as Ex. PW9/2, the Project could have

been started by IVRI only after the sanction was granted for the same by

the ICAR, yet the accused No. 3, 4 & 5 dishonestly and fraudulently

started this Project even before the same was sanctioned by ICAR. They

have also pointed out that though the files maintained in the IVRI with

respect to the Project sought to give an impression that the Project was

being started immediately in view of the directions received from the

Agriculture Minister, it should be taken note of that the said Minister had

only desired that the Project be approved in the Financial year ending

March'1992 and not that it is to be executed also in the same year. It has

also been pointed out by the Ld. Prosecutors that no rules whatsoever

were followed by the IVRI officials namely accused No. 3, 4 and 5 in

choosing the land of accused No. 2 for the execution of the Project and no

reasons whatsoever were assigned for taking the start of the Project as

15.12.1991 when admittedly there was no Project even in existence on the

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Judgment in the matter of:-
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(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors
Dated : 23.01.2016.

said date. According to the Ld. Prosecutors the notings on the files

maintained in IVRI & ICAR with respect to the Project and the minutes

of various Committees clearly reveal that the start of the Project was

shown as 15.12.1991 only to favour the accused No. 1 & 2 so that they

would be entitled to receive rent with effect from this date and that in this

regard a letter dated 16.12.1991 was also obtained from accused No. 2

falsely asserting therein that on this date itself she was authorized by all

the owners of the land in question to offer the same to the government for

its Project.

33. In rebuttal to the said contentions, Ld. Defence

Counsels have pointed out that the guidelines referred to by the

prosecution namely Ex. PW9/2 were not even in existence when the

Project was conceived and approved and that the same came into effect

only w.e.f June'1992. According to the Defence, prior to June'1992 the

guidelines that were in operation were the ones that have been exhibited

as Ex. PW9/1 and that the said guidelines did not lay down any such

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condition that a Project sought to be funded by ICAR cannot be initiated

before its sanction by the ICAR. According to Ld. Defence Counsels Sh.

A.K. Dass and Sh. Singh, it was a normal procedure for IVRI to operate

"Transfer of Technology" (TOT) Projects on its own and that it had its

own separate budget for the said purpose. It has been pointed out by

them that in the instant case that IVRI had already started its Project in

village Kurar by holding a camp therein on 15.12.1991 but when in the

second Extension Council Meeting, it was felt that the Project formulated

by accused No. 3 would require a bigger budget, it was decided that till

the Project was finally approved from ICAR, the expenditure on camps,

survey, preliminary investigation were to be borne out of the extension

budget of IVRI. Thus, according to them, there was nothing illegal in the

act of the accused No. 3, 4 & 5 to have mentioned in the file notings the

start date of the Project as 15.12.1991. As regards the selection of the land

of accused No. 2 for the execution of the Project, the contention of the

Defence is that it was for the prosecution to have pointed out which rules

in this regard had been violated by accused No. 3, 4 & 5 and that it is not

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for these accused persons to show that they were bound to have followed

some particular rules/procedure in selecting the land of accused No. 2 as

appropriate for the execution of the Project. Ld. Defence Counsels have

relied upon the report Ex. PW4/A to contend that apart from accused No.

2 and other coowners of the land in question, no other farmer had offered

his land to the Government for the Project. It is also their submission that

prosecution has not brought on record the details of any other land which

according to it was more suitable for the Project than the land of accused

No. 2 or to show that any undue favours were shown by accused No. 3, 4

and 5 in choosing the land of accused No. 2 only for the Project.

34. After carefully considering the material referred to by

both the sides, this Court has come to the conclusion that infact the

prosecution has been able to prove that the accused No. 3, 4 & 5 did act

illegally in referring to the date of start of the Project as 15.12.1991 and

they did so only in pursuance of the conspiracy entered by them with

accused No. 1 & 2 and to ensure that the land of accused No. 1 and 2 is

only chosen for the Project. It is very relevant to take note of the fact that

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as per the official notings prepared by accused H.P.S. Verma in file D16,

which has been proved by PW32, the Project in question was for the first

time formulated by accused O.S. Verma in writing on 10.1.1992. It is also

a matter of a record that the said Project proposal was placed before the

Extension Council of IVRI for the first time on 13.1.1992 and was

considered to be viable (agenda 6 of the minutes Ex. PW32/B). The said

Project mentions that in its PhaseI i.e from January to March, 1992 the

site of the Project will be selected and it is recorded in the minutes of the

second meeting of the Extension Council held on 24.1.1992 that a

Committee consisting of Dr. H.P.S. Arya, O.S. Verma and three other

officials will visit the area in search of suitable land. Further, as per the

committee report Ex. PW4/A, H.P.S. Arya, O.S. Verma and two other

officials of the IVRI had visited the Kurar Village on 30.1.1992 and

selected the land in question of accused No. 1 and 2 and others for the

implementation of the Project. Thus even by their own records

maintained by accused No. 3, 4 & 5 it was only on 30.01.1992 that for the

first time the land of accused No. 1 and 2 was considered suitable for

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execution of the Project. In view of such records there could not have

arisen any occasion for these accused persons to assert that the Project

was started with effect from 15.12.1991 i.e. the date of the holding of the

camp in village Kurar. The contention of Ld. Counsels for these accused

persons that since the camp was held on 15.12.1991 the date of the Project

could also have been taken from the said date and that there can be no

illegality in doing so cannot be accepted for a Project cannot be

retrospectively shown to have started from a date when even its proposal

was not in existence.

35. As regards the submission of general practice of

starting a Project by IVRI for which the funds had to be obtained from

ICAR, though no doubt it is Ex. PW9/1 which would have been

applicable as on the date of the approval of the Project by ICAR, the files

maintained by ICAR do make it apparent that it was never a general

practice that IVRI could start such a Project even before its approval from

ICAR. In this regard, it would be relevant herein to consider the

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following material proved by the prosecution:

(i) The official noting Ex. PW5/A10 prepared by PW5 R.C.

Puri, an official of the Agricultural Extension Division, ICAR. This witness has

deposed that he had prepared the said noting and had put it up before the

accused P.C. Mathur, the then ADG, ICAR. According to the deposition of this

witness, he had prepared the said note after the office order issued by the then

Director, IVRI (accused P.N. Bhat), Ex. PW5/A12 was received in the ICAR.

The said noting reveal that PW5 had objected to the date of start of the Project

mentioned in the office order issued by accused P.N.Bhat as 15.12.1991 when the

financial sanction was granted by ICAR only on 27.04.1992 and that when the

said objection was put up before the accused P.N. Mathur, he directed that Dr.

O.S. Verma be called personally to discuss the said issue. Though as per the file

Ex. PW5/A, there is no noting thereafter as to what happened after O.S. Verma

was called personally to discuss the said issue, a letter dated 14.09.1993 issued by

the accused P.N. Mathur and proved by this accused himself as Ex. DW11/C

shows that vide the said communication, the accused O.S. Verma was again asked

to clarify as to how the start of the Project is being shown as 15.12.1991 while the

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ICAR had sanctioned the scheme only w.e.f 27.04.1992.

(ii) Ex. PW5/A27, a report dated 23.02.1993 of PW49, Sh.

P.C. Sharma, Senior Scientist (AE), Division of Agricultural Extension, ICAR. As

per the deposition of this witness, upon receiving a complaint lodged with the

Hon'ble Prime Minister of India regarding irregularities being conducted in the

execution of the Project, he had been directed by the Zonal Coordinator, Sh. R.L.

Rai to visit the Project site at Kurar and give his report. According to the

deposition of this witness, he had visited the site and had also gone through the

progress report submitted by the accused O.S. Verma and had thereafter

prepared his report Ex. PW5/A27. In the said report, it is categorically

mentioned by this Senior Scientist that it is not understood as to how the Project

work is shown to have been started by the IVRI w.e.f. 15.12.1991, while the

formal approval by the ICAR was only granted on 27.04.1992. It is a matter of

record that none of the accused persons during the crossexamination of this

witness put a single question regarding the said comment made by him in his

report

(iii) A detailed report, Ex. PW9/4 dated 16.08.1994 prepared

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by S.R. Katyal and proved by PW9 Dr. Aditya Narain Shukla, ADG, Krishi

Vigyan Kendra, ICAR. This witness has deposed that in 199495 he was given

charge by the DDG, ICAR for coordination of research Projects and that on

11.07.1994, he received a communication from the Private Secretary to the

Minister of External Affairs regarding the status of the Kurar Project and that

he marked the said communication to Senior Scientist P.C. Sharma vide his note

Ex. PW9/3 who in turn marked it to the concerned Section Officer and that the

said officer S.R. Katyal submitted a detailed report on the Project on 22.08.1994.

According to the deposition of this witness, the said report was also examined by

P.C Sharma and he also submitted his report Ex. PW9/5 thereon and that both

the reports Ex. PW9/4 and Ex. PW9/5 were then considered by him (i.e the

witness) and he suggested that the matter be referred to Vigilance. Now

admittedly the detailed report Ex. PW9/4 categorically mentions in its para 13

that IVRI could not have started the Project w.e.f. 15.12.1991 when its actual

sanction was issued by the ICAR only on 27.04.1992. The said para infact

mentions in detail as to what is the general practice which is required to be

followed in such Projects and it would therefore be relevant to reproduce the

same herein:

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Since the scheme had been sanctioned with the concurrence of
the Financial Advisor and with the approval of the DG ICAR
subject to rectification by the SFC/GB, a note to the SFC/GB
was required to be put up which was initiated by the office vide
notes on PP. 2627/ante. At the stage preparation of Executive
Summary for DG along with the SFC/GB note, it was
considered essential to seek the clarification from the Principal
Investigator of the scheme with regard to the circumstances
under which the date of start of the scheme had been indicated
as 15.12.1991 whereas actual sanction was issued by the Council
only on 27.4.1992. Work could not have, normally, been
undertaken in anticipation of the approval unless there was any
specific undertaking given by the Council to this effect. And as
far as the records indicate, no such assurance was ever given to
the Principal Investigator. Therefore, letter dated 14.09.1993
was issued by the Council in this behalf vide S. No. 28/Cor., at p
142/cor. Reply to this has not been received. (emphasis supplied).

36. All the aforementioned notings/reports proved on

record absolutely negate the contention of the defence that it was a

general practice that a Project/scheme proposed by IVRI and forwarded to

the ICAR for approval/funding could be started by IVRI before the ICAR

to grant its sanction.

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37. The next submission of these Ld. Counsels that the

Extension Council of IVRI which had met on 13.1.1992 had approved the

Project in question and had authorized IVRI to hold camps had therefore

in effect approved the start of the Project w.e.f. 15.12.1991 can also not be

accepted firstly because the Extension Council of IVRI does not appear

to have any authority to approve a Project which is to be financially and

administratively funded by ICAR and secondly because even the relevant

minutes of the Extension Council, IVRI proved on record also reveal that

they did not at all approve the start of the Project from the date of holding

of the camp in December, 1991.

38. The said minutes of the Extension Council proved as

Ex. PW32/B make it clear that the approval for the start of Project was

granted if at all only w.e.f. 13.1.1992 and not w.e.f 15.12.1991. The said

minutes clearly mention that the Council authorizes IVRI to start the

work, make the financial expenditure on camp, survey and do the

preliminary investigations including taking the land on rent basis as

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envisaged in the plan of work out of the extension budget of IVRI and in

the meantime, IVRI should take necessary steps to get the Project

approved by ICAR for financial support. In other words, the authority that

was given by the Extension Council was only to start the ground work

which can by no stretch of imagination be inferred as an authority to take

the start of the Project retrospectively from December, 1991.

39. In the considered opinion of this Court, it is thus

being rightly contended by the prosecution that the intention behind the

insistence to take the start of the Project w.e.f. December, 1991 appears to

be the anxiety of accused No. 3, 4 and 5 to make sure that it is only the

land of accused No. 1 and 2 which is chosen for the Project and to

understand the said intention, it becomes necessary to note what these

three accused persons did after the Extension Council of IVRI gave the

go ahead for the selection of the land for the Project. As narrated

hereinabove, the first step shown is that a Committee consisting of H.P.S

Arya, O.S Verma and three other officials was deputed to visit Village

Kurar to select the land. A perusal of the Committee report Ex. PW4/A

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reflects that apart from H.P.S Arya and O.S. Verma one another Scientist,

H.C. Joshi and two other officials of IVRI namely G.L.Vaish and A.K.

Singh had been directed to inspect Village Kurar. The Committee report

however, does not bear the signature of H.C. Joshi and it has been pointed

out by the Ld. Public Prosecutors that the official record reflects that this

Scientist vide his letter dated 29.1.1992 had informed the Director, IVRI

that he has extensive work load with him and is also not acquainted with

the Project in question and that therefore he had not gone to inspect

Village Kurar and that is the reason he did not sign the report. The

deposition of PW4 A.K. Singh reveals that he was employed as a

Technical Officer with the IVRI and he has deposed that his duty was to

look after the maintenance of building and construction and it was vide

orders of the Director of IVRI (i.e accused P.N. Bhat) that he had been

made a part of the Committee. According to his deposition, his duty was

to inspect the water supply and the temporary construction for the

Project. Interestingly, in his examinationinchief itself, he has deposed

that he does not remember which particular land was recommended by

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the committee for the Project nor does he remember the exact nature of

the said land. According to him, it was the accused H.P.S. Arya and

accused O.S Verma who were acquainted with the area in which the land

was selected. In his crossexamination this witness has deposed that

since he was working in the Maintenance Department, he has no clue

even about the object and purpose of the IVRI. As regards G.L. Vaish, as

per records, this person belonged to the Accounts Department of IVRI.

In other words, the only persons who can be termed as being acquainted

with the Project and therefore being acquainted with the requirements of

the land appropriate for the Project who visited village Kurar and selected

the land of accused No. 1 and 2 for the Project were O.S. Verma and

H.P.S. Arya. Now the Committee report Ex. PW4/A mentions that

Kurar Farm (a terminology used for describing the land of accused No.

1 and 2 and their relatives in the official records) was found to be

centrally located and having sufficient land required for the land use

patterns, animal husbandry units and various demonstrations as envisaged

under the Project and that the Committee members discussed with the

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land owners/farmers of Kurar Farm the Project and that the said farmers

showed their willingness to participate in the Project. The said report also

mentions that alternatives were discussed with the said land owners in

this regard and that the first of the alternative was that the land owners

would conditionally transfer their land to ICAR but since the District

Magistrate was of the opinion that the private land of the farmers could

not be taken on rent without the permission of the Secretary Revenue, UP

Government which would take time, a second alternative was discussed

with the land owners that the farmers could participate with IVRI in the

Project and permit them to raise temporary structures on their land and 10

% of the produce from the Project could be shared with the farmers as

benefits of the transfer of technology. The report also mentions that since

the second alternative would need clearance from the Extension Council

of IVRI and the same will take time and that since the committee felt the

TOT Project is to be started immediately, it was agreed with the farmers

that they would be paid a sum of Rs. 5000/ per month for the next three

months and in the meanwhile the permission from the Extension Council

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would be obtained. Further, it was also agreed that since the selected land

would be required to be looked after for the safety and security of the

materials to be placed thereon for organizing extension educational

activities, the Committee selected one retired army person named Harji

Lal to work as security guard and would be paid Rs. 1000/ per month by

the IVRI.

40. The aforementioned report has been referred to in

detail to bring out certain very relevant facts the first and foremost being

that as per this report the Kurar Farm was selected because it was

centrally located and because the farmers/land owners of the said farm

agreed to give the same to IVRI. Now strangely there is not a whisper in

the entire official records maintained with respect to the Project in

question by accused No. 3, 4 and 5 as to what were the names of these

farmers/land owners who had met the Committee on 30.01.1992 and with

whom it had been agreed that Rs. 5000/ per month would be paid. As per

the revenue records proved on record by PW38, there were 12 owners of

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the Kurar Farm accused No. 1, 2 and 10 other persons. It is not the stand

of accused No. 1 and 2 that they were present in Village Kurar on

30.1.1992 when the aforementioned Committee had come to inspect the

Kurar Farm. Three of the other relatives of accused No. 1 and 2 who were

also assertedly the coowners of Kurar Farm have been examined by the

prosecution as PW36 Baljeet Singh, PW46 Inderjeet Singh and PW47

Kalawati have also not deposed they were present in Village Kurar on

30.1.1992 nor has it been suggested to them by any of the accused No. 3, 4

and 5 that they were so present.

41. The second relevant fact which comes to the fore with

respect to this report is that though it is mentioned therein that the

alternatives considered by the Committee and the landowners of the

Kurar Farms will be put up before the Extension Council, the notings

proved by PW32 O.N. Kunzru, Ex. PW32/C on page 4 and 5 in file

D16, seized by the IO vide Ex. PW43/D, reveal that as per the

discussion held between accused H.P.S. Arya, PW32 and accused P.N.

Bhat, it was decided that since the Project had been cleared in principle

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by the Extension Council, the alternative of a joint effort by farmers and

IVRI be given the go ahead. In other words, vide this meeting, the

accused H.P.S Arya and accused P.N. Bhat very conveniently bypassed

the approval of the selection of the Kurar Farm for the Project, by the

Extension Council. The said notings bear the signature of accused P.N.

Bhat at point B and that of accused H.P.S Arya at point C and yet again

these notings do not mention who the owners of Kurar Farms are, but it is

merely mentioned therein that the farmers of Kurar Farm through its

power of attorney holder be sanctioned the monthly rent of Rs. 5,000 and

that all legal encumbrances of the land chosen be ascertained from

District Authorities/other sources and an office order be so issued in this

regard. The office order dated 23.4.1992 issued in this regard by the Chief

Administrative Officer of the IVRI, Shri V.K. Shridhar has been proved

as Ex. PW5/A11 and the same mentions that the said order has been

issued with the approval of the Director and clearly specifies that a

transfer of technology Project will be set up in 50 acres of farmers land

subject to certain conditions and one of the conditions mentioned therein

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is that an agreement, to be prepared by the Scientist Incharge of the

Project and duly vetted by the DGC (Civil) and Legal Advisor, ICAR will

be executed between the IVRI and the land owners or the person/persons

possessing power of attorney executed by each land owner. It is also

made clear vide the said office order that advance on the proper proforma

may be drawn by O.S. Verma, the Scientist Incharge of the Project, for

making payment to the land owners and security guard after finalizing the

power of attorney and other formalities. However, admittedly, no such

formalities were completed at all.

42. In the considered opinion of this Court, the omission

of the name of the land owners of Kurar Farm in the minutes/notings, the

bypassing of the Executive Council and the nonverification of the

ownership documents and the nonexecution of the lease agreement

between the asserted owners of the Kurar Farm all appear to have been

deliberately done by accused No. 3, 4 and 5 in pursuance of the

conspiracy entered by them with accused No. 1 and 2 for the following

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evidence brought on record by the prosecution reveals that infact till the

end of 1992 only four power of attorneys relating to Kurar Farm by

Accused No. 1, B.L. Bhadu in his own name had been submitted with

IVRI.

43. The first of the evidence relevant in this regard is the

deposition of PW7 S.K. Singh, Asstt Administrative Officer and the file

notings and various communications proved by this witness. The said

deposition and the records make it amply clear that till the month of

January, 1993 the only documents with respect to the ownership of land

in question that were available on official record were xerox copy of

Power of Attorneys executed by four persons in favour of B.L. Bhadu,

accused No. 1. According to the deposition of PW7 when in the month of

December, 1992 the accused O.S. Verma vide his letter dated 28.12.1992

Ex. PW7/A3 requested PIMS Section of IVRI to clear the backlog of

land use payments to Bhagwanti Devi with effect from October 1992, it is

this witness who raised the objection as to how the said payments have

been made to Bhagwanti Devi till September, 1992 in the absence of any

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documents showing that she was authorized on behalf of all owners to

receive the said payment. This witness has further deposed that when he

prepared a note on 16.01.1993, incorporating the said objection and put it

up before the then Director IVRI D.S. Balain, it was opined by the said

Director that it needs to be examined as to how payments were made up

to September, 1992 without there being any agreement signed by the land

owners at the time of start of the Project. The notings made by this

witness have been proved from point A to A on page 3 of the file Ex.

PW7/A and the notings made by D.S. Balain have been proved from

points B to B on page 4 of the file Ex. PW7/A and then again from point

A to A on page 5 and 6 of the same file. Vide the said notes the Director

took notice of the objections of the Chief Financial and Administrative

Officer with respect to the land use payment already made to Bhagwanti

Devi without there being any agreement signed between IVRI and her

and also called for an immediate meeting of the accused O.S. Verma,

H.P.S. Arya, Chief Administrative Officer and this witness himself. The

minutes of the said meeting held on 08.02.1993, prepared by the Director

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D.S. Balain in his own handwriting have been proved on page 5 and 6 of

Ex.PW7/A. As per the said minutes, it was decided in the meeting that

accused O.S. Verma will ensure that all formalities required for the

execution of lease agreement would be completed at the earliest. Pursuant

to the said meeting, another meeting was held on 27.02.1993 and the

minutes of the said meeting have been proved by PW7 as being from

point A to A on page 8 of Ex. PW7/A. This witness has also identified

the signatures of accused O.S. Verma on the said minutes. From the said

minutes, it is apparent that on 12.02.1993 accused O.S. Verma had placed

before the Director, a photocopy of a letter purportedly dated 16.12.1991

and written by accused No. 2 representing that she along with four other

persons was the owner of Kurar Farm and that the said four other persons

had executed a power of attorney in her favour with respect to the said

land and she was authorized on behalf of all owners to state that they

were ready to offer the said land for the Project. Now according to

accused O.S. Verma, this letter had been given to him at the time of

initiation of the Project by accused P.N. Bhat when he was the Director,

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IVRI (the said fact has been mentioned by accused O.S. Verma in his

two letters dated 4.9.1993 and 3.1.1994 proved by PW7 as Ex.

PW7/X2 and Ex. PW7/B6 respectively). As per the contents of the

said letter dated 16.12.1991, Ex. PW39/A7 on this date itself the accused

No. 2 willingly offered her land to ICAR for the implementation of TOT

Project titled "Life Stock Technology and Extension Systems for Rural

Development" to be operated by IVRI and funded by ICAR. In other

words, on this date itself, as per the said letter the accused No. 2 was

aware that it is ICAR which would be implementing the said Project

along with IVRI, which is impossible for on 16.12.1991, as discussed

hereinabove there was no such Project even in existence. It is a matter of

record that ICAR had given its sanction/approval to the Project only on

27.4.1992 and therefore, there was no question of the accused No. 1 and 2

to be aware on 16.12.1991, of the nomenclature of the said Project or the

fact that ICAR would be funding it. The only inference that can be drawn

from the said letter therefore is that this ante dated letter was obtained by

accused No. 3, 4 and 5 from accused No. 1 and 2, only in order to show

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the initiation of the Project from 16.12.1991 and to enable the accused No.

1 and 2 to receive funds from the Exchequer with effect from this date

and this letter was obtained after PW7 and the new Director, Dr. Bahlain

raised the issue of the ownership documents of the Kurar Farm. However,

suprisingly, to explain the said letter the contention of Ld. Counsel Sh.

A.K. Dass for accused P.N. Bhat and Counsel Sh. Dhirendra Singh for

accused H.P.S Arya is that the accused O.S. Verma is lying and the said

letter was not in existence on official records in the year 1991 or 1992 and

according to them, the minutes of meeting appearing on pages 8 and 9 of

Ex. PW7/A clearly reveal that the said letter was placed on official

record by accused O.S. Verma only on 12.2.1993 and therefore their

contention is that the accused H.P.S. Arya and P.N. Bhatt had nothing to

do with the said letter and that it should only be O.S. Verma who should

be held responsible for having obtained this ante dated letter in the year

1993 from accused No. 1 and 2 and if at all for conniving with them.

They have reiterated that the start of the Project was taken to be

15.12.1991 only because of holding of the camp on the said day and not

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because of the letter of consent given by accused on 16.12.1991.

44. In the considered opinion of this Court, it cannot be

accepted that accused H.P.S. Arya and P.N. Bhat had not acted in

connivance with accused No. 1 and 2 for as discussed hereinabove both

these accused were very much a part of the process that selected the land

of accused No. 1 and 2 for the Project in JanFeb, 1992 when admittedly

no documents of ownership of these accused persons were submitted by

them with the IVRI. It is also to borne in mind that these persons have

been unable to explain as to on the basis of which documents had they

verified that it was accused No. 2 Bhagwanti Devi who along with her

other relatives was the coowner of the land in question and had approved

the sanction of the payment of land use to her immediately. The

remaining deposition of PW7 and the communications proved by him on

record reveal that infact till February, 1994, the office of IVRI did not

even have in its possession any ownership document whatsoever of

Bhagwanti Devi with respect to the Kurar Farm. In this respect, the

following notes prepared by PW7 and communications entered between

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the Administrative Office of IVRI and the accused O.S. Verma and

Bhagwanti Devi are most relevant to be looked into:

(i) As narrated herein above, on 27.02.1993 a meeting

had been held between the then Director, IVRI, accused O.S. Verma and

the Chief Administrative Officers of IVRI in which the letter dated

16.12.1991 was placed before the said officials by O.S. Verma. Now, as

per the minutes of the said meeting based on the said letter, the accused

O.S. Verma was directed by the Director, IVRI to verify the Power of

Attorneys referred to by accused Bhagwanti Devi in the said letter dated

16.12.1991 and after the said verification get a draft agreement finalized

between her and IVRI. The witness PW7 has further deposed that he

had prepared a note dated 04.08.1993 which appears on page 20, 21 and

22 of Ex. PW7/A and had put the same before the then Director, IVRI for

his approval. According to the deposition of this witness, he had to

prepare the said notes pursuant to a letter written by accused O.S. Verma

to the Senior Administrative Officer of IVRI, Sh. K.S. Hira. The said

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letter has been proved by this witness as Ex. PW7/A6 bearing the

signatures of accused O.S. Verma at point A. A perusal of the said letter

makes it clear that the said letter had been written by accused O.S. Verma

in response to the letter dated 20.07.1993 issued by Sh. K.S. Hira to him.

The said letter appears at page 62 of Ex. PW7/A. It is mentioned by Sh.

K.S. Hira in the said letter that nothing has been heard from accused O.S.

Verma after the meeting held in the chamber of Director on 27.02.1993

wherein the accused O.S. Verma had been directed to verify the Power of

Attorneys and get the draft agreement prepared. Now, in response thereto

the accused O.S. Verma vide his letter Ex. PW7/A6 dated 03.08.1993

forwarded only the xerox copies of Power of Attorneys executed by Sh.

Inderjeet, Sultan Singh, Kalawati and Smt. Mukhi and that too in favour

of B.L. Bhadu and not Bhagwant Devi and mentioned that these are the

only copies available with him and that the originals thereof may either

be with the accused P.N. Bhat or the accused Bhagwanti Devi.After going

through the said documents provided by accused O.S. Verma, PW7

prepared his notes appearing on page 20,21 and 22 of Ex. PW7/A and it

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is mentioned in the said notes that the documents handed over by accused

O.S. Verma reveal that infact there are 12 coowners of the Kurar Farm

and not 5 as represented by accused Bhagwanti Devi in her letter dated

16.12.1991 and that therefore the accused O.S.Verma be called upon the

explain as to how the entire land use payment has been given by accused

O.S. Verma only to Bhagwanti Devi. Based on the said notes which were

approved by the Director, according to the deposition of PW7 letter Ex.

PW7/B1 dated 03.09.1993 was issued to accused O.S. Verma calling

upon him to explain the aforementioned discrepancy. In reply to the said

letter, the accused O.S. Verma then wrote the letter Ex. PW7/X2 dated

04.09.1993 and in the said letter, the accused O.S. Verma asserted that it

was on the basis of the letter dated 16.12.1991 only that the land use share

proposal was submitted by him to the Director IVRI for making payments

to her and further, the proposals of advance were also processed by the

Finance and Accounts section on the basis of the said letter only. In other

words, as per the words of the accused O.S. Verma, no powers of attorney

executed by the coowners of Kurar Farm in favour of Bhagwanti Devi

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had been provided to the IVRI in the year 1991 or in the year 1992 and

that it was only on the basis of the letter dated 16.12.1991 that payments

were released to her. He also sought to take a stand that since the IVRI

had only taken 50 acres of the total Kurar Farm comprising of 133.40

acres, Bhagwanti Devi can be considered to be entitled for 50 % share in

the 50 acre land dues. In other words, the aforementioned notings and

communications show that in the year 1992 accused Bhagwanti Devi had

not furnished any ownership documents to show that she had been

authorized by all the coowners of the Kurar Farm to permit the use of the

said farm for the Project.

(ii) Faced with the aforementioned situation, as per the

deposition of PW7, a memo dated 01.01.1994, Ex PW7/B4 was issued by

the then Director, IVRI, Sh. D.S. Balain to accused O.S. Verma asking

him to complete all the formalities within 10 days of the said memo.

According to the deposition of PW7, apart from the said memo the

Senior Administrative Officer, C.P. Thomas then had to write various

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letters to accused Bhagwanti Devi asking her to furnish her original

ownership documents. All the said letters have been proved on record by

PW7 again and are Ex. PW7/B3, PW7/B7 and Ex. PW7/7. Very

importantly in the letter Ex. PW7/7 dated 19.02.1994 the Senior

Administrative Officer, C.P. Thomas categorically informed accused

Bhagwanti Devi that all the Power of Attorneys furnished by her and

those on record only reveal that 4 coowners of Kurar Farm had executed

a Power of Attorney in favour of the accused B.L. Bhadu and that the

IVRI does not have any evidence in support of her own share in the said

land or any document showing that the said four coowners have executed

Power of Attorney documents in her favour. The letters that were received

from accused Bhagwanti Devi in response to this letter and the other

letters have also been proved by PW7 as Ex. PW7/B8 and PW7/8. In

the said letters the accused Bhagwanti Devi took a stand that since only

50 acres of land at Kurar Farm had been given to IVRI and the share of

each of the 12 coowners is approximately 11 acres, the IVRI can easily

prepare a lease agreement with her, she having been authorized by four

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other persons with respect to 50 acres of land. In other words both the

accused O.S. Verma and the accused Bhagwanti Devi took a similar stand

namely that without there being any formal partition of the Kurar Farm,

the IVRI should on their own assume that the 50 acres of land taken for

the Project will fall to the share of accused Bhagwanti Devi and the four

coowners who had executed a Power of Attorney in her favour. She also

finally for the first time vide her letter dated 24.02.1994, Ex. PW7/8

informed that B.L. Bhadu, who had been authorized by the four co

owners to deal with their share in the Kurar Farm had executed a Power

of Attorney in her favour and that she had provided a copy thereof to the

accused H.P.S. Arya. In the said letter, she categorically also stated that

at the time of initiation of the Project, she had held discussions with the

then Director, that is, the accused P.N. Bhat and the Project Director i.e.

O.S Verma. The said letter thus clearly belies the contention of accused

P.N Bhat that he had nothing to do with the owners of the Kurar farm and

all formalities with respect to the same were being looked into by accused

O.S Verma only. Though this accused maybe right in contending that its

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only the word of Bhagwanti Devi who is herself an accused against him,

the active connivance of this accused with accused No. 1 and 2 is also

borne out from the office order dated 2/4.5.1992 Ex. PW5/12 issued by

him. In the said office order this accused has, interalia, conveyed that the

Project already in operation in Kurar Village w.e.f 15.12.1991 has since

been approved by the ICAR is an adhoc scheme through the sanction

letter dated 27.4.1992. Now it is a matter of record that the Project that

was sent to ICAR for approval did not mention at all that the Project in

question has already been started by the IVRI on its own and that it is

already in operation w.e.f 15.12.1991. Thus without intimating the ICAR

that the IVRI had started the Project on its own, the accused P.N Bhat in

the aforementioned office order makes out a case as if the ICAR has

approved the action of IVRI in already starting the Project w.e.f

15.12.1991. This document on record, in the considered opinion of this

court is being rightly relied upon by the prosecution to contend that the

accused P.N. Bhat was also very much a part of the conspiracy. The

contention of the Ld. Counsel Sh. A.K. Dass for this accused that it was a

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normal procedure for the IVRI to operate TOT Projects on its own and

that therefore there was nothing wrong in the action of P.N. Bhat giving

his approval to the initiation of TOT Project in Kurar nor does it reflect

his connivance with the accused No. 1, 2 and 3 cannot be upheld for as

discussed hereinabove though it might have been usual for the IVRI to

initiate TOT Projects on its own there is absolutely no reason for this

accused to have shown the start of the Project in question w.e.f.

15.12.1991 when the land for the Project was not even selected and this

fact in the opinion of this court shows his connivance with the other

accused persons. Similarly, the assertion of the accused H.P.S. Arya in his

letter Ex. PW39/D and the assertion of the accused O.S Verma in his

Project reports and other communications that the possession of the

Kurar Farm was taken on 16.12.1991 and the said land was in continuous

possession of IVRI since the said date, without there being an iota of

truth in the said assertion show their connivance with accused No. 1 and

2. There is not a single document on the official files to show that the

camp at Village Kurar was held on Kurar Farm on 15.12.1991 and the

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possession of the said farm was taken on 16.12.1991 by IVRI. At the cost

of repetition, it is to be observed that the official record itself shows that

the inspection and selection of the Kurar Farm for the Project in question

was done only on 30.1.1992 and therefore it could not have been taken

into possession on 16.12.1991 and that too on the basis of a forged

document Ex. PW39/A7.

45. The aforementioned record and discussion

hereinabove amply shows the connivance of the accused P.N. Bhat,

accused H.P.S. Arya and accused O.S. Verma, with accused No. 1 and 2

because it proves that these accused being the Director, the Head,

Division of Extension Education, IVRI and the Project/Principal

Investigator respectively were not only aware that no ownership

documents had been provided showing the ownership of accused No. 2,

they actively and deliberately chose the Kurar farm for the Project and

omitted in the file notings and the office orders, the mentioning of the

name of the owners of the Kurar Farm. They also deliberately failed to

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verify as to who all were the actual owners of the land in question and

this fact does not merely reflect negligence on the part of these officials

as sought to be contended by them, but it reflects that they had actively

connived with accused No. 1 and 2 to show favours to them. It is

inconceivable that the ownership of land chosen for a government Project

is not even verified properly and the officials responsible for the same

want it to be believed that it was a mere irregularity on their part and that

they had not connived with the landowners.

46. Coming now to the third circumstance being relied

upon by the prosecution to prove that the intention behind the Project was

only to develop the barren land of accused No. 1 and 2 is the fact that

despite being aware that the land was barren/Usar and not fit at all for the

Project, accused O.S. Verma and H.P.S. Verma kept carrying out the

development of the said land and deliberately did not bring the fact that

the land was unfit for the Project to the attention of ICAR by delaying the

submission of the six monthly/annual reports of the Project or mentioning

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therein the said fact. The Ld. Prosecutors for the CBI have pointed out

various material brought on record by the CBI to prove that the land was

barren and have also pointed out that though the Project was primarily to

demonstrate to the farmers how they could improve the health of their

livestock on their own farms, in the entire four years that the Project was

in operation, not a single piece of infrastructure was built for the

animals/livestock on the Kurar Farm and all the funds released by ICAR

were used to develop the barren land of accused No. 1 and 2.

47. In rebuttal to the said contentions of the Ld. Public

Prosecutors, the accused O.S. Verma and Counsel Sh. Singh for accused

H.P.S Arya and Counsel Sh. A.K Dass on behalf of accused P.N. Bhat

have firstly sought to contend that the land in question was not barren and

that therefore the case of the prosecution must fall on this ground itself.

The Ld. Defence counsels have pointed out that in the FIR the

investigating agency has itself mentioned that the land in question was

comprised in Khasra Nos. 747 and 749 and that the own witness of the

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prosecution PW23 R.C. Sharma has admitted in his crossexamination

that land comprised in these Khasra Nos. was fertile.

48. In order to appreciate this contention of the Ld.

Defence Counsels it will be relevant herein to consider the deposition of

PW23 R.C. Sharma. This witness was admittedly posted as Principal

Scientist at Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) and had on

the request of the IVRI, inspected the land in question and had collected

soil and water samples from the said land and after the analysis of the

same had submitted his report to the Director CSSRI, Sh. N.T. Singh. The

said Director had then prepared a report dated 18.10.1992 under his

signature and had forwarded the same to the Director, IVRI. Now, PW23

R.C. Sharma in his deposition in the Court has proved the said report of

the Director N.T. Singh as PW23/A1. In the said report, it is clearly

mentioned that the soils of plot No. 1,7,8,9,10,11,12 and 14 of the Project

Area were found to be strongly alkali and the soils of the remaining plots

were found to be moderately alkali and the PH value of the soils found in

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all the plots have been mentioned in the soil report I annexed with the

said report. (A site map of the Project area is a part of this report and it is

mentioned on the said map that it was given by the Project officer present

on the Kurar farm on 26.09.1992 and it is on the basis of the said map that

the Project area was divided into 20 plots numbering 120). The witness

PW23 in his deposition has also categorically deposed in his cross

examination that the land when examined was found to be barren. Now,

on the basis of this report Ex. PW23/A1 and the deposition of PW23

the prosecution is contending that it has proved beyond reasonable doubt

that the land of the Project area was barren and its soil was highly alkali

and would require reclamation. However, the Ld. Defence Counsels are

relying upon a statement made by PW23 in his deposition to the effect

that in his report submitted to the office of the Director he had reported

that one of the samples namely that from Khasra No. 747 was found to be

normal and that the original of the said report is not available with him or

in the office of CSSRI but that the photocopy of the same is appearing at

D48 of the record of the prosecution. The said report admittedly has

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been given a mark PA and apparently mentions that five soil samples

were taken from the Kurar farms which was divided into a number of

khasras and that the soil samples were taken from Khasra No. 744, 720,

747, 665 and 723 and further that the soil profile taken from Khasra No.

747 was found to be normal and not requiring any amendment

whatsoever. It is this report mark PA which is being relied upon by the

Ld. Defence Counsels to contend that the Khasra No. 747 which was a

part of the Project area was not barren at all.

49. In the considered opinion of this Court, the effort

being made by the Ld. Defence Counsels at the stage of final arguments

on the basis of a mere photocopy of a report to contend that the land in

question was fertile is absolutely without any merit and is to be rejected

outrightly. It is to be noted that this witness PW23 in his deposition has

clearly stated that the original map of the site was not available and only a

rough map was prepared at the spot mentioning therein the Khasra Nos.

and sampling sites. In the considered opinion of this court, therefore, the

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report mark PA of this witness cannot at all be read to infer that the

Khasra No. 747 was found to be fertile, more so when the final report Ex.

PW23/A1 submitted by the Director, CSSRI, Sh. N.T. Singh and proved

by PW23 himself clearly narrates that the soils of all the plots of the

Project area were found to be alkaline. Further, this contention of the Ld.

Defence Counsels Sh. A.K. Dass and Sh. Dhirendra Singh is

contradictory to the own reports prepared by the accused persons O.S.

Verma and H.P.S. Arya. Admittedly, the accused O.S. Verma in his own

letter dated 22.08.1992, Ex. PW33/E addressed to the Director IVRI

asking for amount to be sanctioned for the purchase of pyrites for the

reclamation of the Project land has categorically mentioned that 5000

bags of pyrites is to be used in the reclamation of hard and saline soil and

that therefore the amount for its purchase be sanctioned. Similarly, the

accused H.P.S. Arya also has got various amounts sanctioned for the

purchase of pyrites on the ground that the land of the Project area is

alkaline and is required to be reclaimed (particular reference is made to

Ex. PW33/G, PW33/J and PW33/K). In view of such record proved

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during trial, the defence cannot now be heard to be taking a contention

that the land in question was never barren. Infact the Ld. Defence

counsels had no answer to the query that if the land comprising the

Project area was fertile then why did the accused persons O.S. Verma and

H.P.S. Arya got huge amount of the government spent for reclaiming it. It

is also to be taken note of that the revenue records of the land in question

proved by PW1 and PW38 also shows that the land was uncultivated.

Further, PW36 Baljeet Singh one of the coowners of the land in

question has also clearly deposed that the land was not viable for

agricultural purposes. Admittedly, none of the accused persons

challenged this statement of PW36 and therefore, in the considered

opinion of this Court, it is to be held in view of Ex. PW23/A1 and

PW33/E and the revenue records that the land in question was infact

barren.

50. In this regard it is also relevant to consider the report

Ex. PW42/D tendered by PW42 Dr. R.N. Rai who was at the relevant

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time posted as Zonal Coordinator with ICAR. The witness during his

deposition has proved a letter dated 17.11.1993 which was addressed to

him. A perusal of the said letter Ex. PW42/C reveals that vide the same,

this witness had been directed by Sh. P.C. Sharma Senior Scientist, ICAR

to visit the Project site in Kurar and submit his expert comments relating

to technical as well as financial and administrative aspects under the

Project. This witness has deposed that pursuant to the said letter, he had

visited the site and had submitted a report Ex. PW42/D and had

forwarded the same to the accused P.N. Mathur the then DDG, ICAR.

Now a perusal of the said report reveals that this witness has interalia,

mentioned therein that considering the title of the Project as"An action

Research Project on Integrated Livestock Technology & Extension

Systems for Rural Development" it could not be understood why the

Usar land was selected in such interior area of Farrukhabad district

and the selected land could have been a site for Usar Reclamation/or

improvement work and that it is doubtful that integrated livestock

technology programme in following the raising of fodder crops and

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feed etc will be successful in such type of land. The testimony of this

witness is being questioned by the defence on the ground that he has

admitted in his crossexamination that he had remained at the site only for

one hour and that he had not gone through the details of the Project and

did not have the in depth knowledge of the Project. It is the contention of

the Ld. Defence Counsels that in one hour itself this witness could not

have observed that the entire Project area is Usar land. With respect to

the said contention of the Defence, it is to be noted firstly that this

witness has categorically deposed that he has done his Ph.D in Soil

Science and has the necessary expertise to determine whether a land is

soil affected or not by merely observing the vegetation at the site and that

therefore, he has rightly visualised that the land could have been better

utilized for land reclamation. Secondly, as discussed hereinabove, the fact

that the land was actually saline and hence Usar has also been proved by

the report Ex. PW23/A1. In view of two expert reports proved on

record during trial, in the considered opinion of this court, there cannot

be any doubt that the land in question was Usar and not fit for the Project

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in question.

51. The contention of the Defence then is that even the

Scientists of the IVRI, namely the accused persons O.S. Verma, H.P S

Arya and P.N. Bhat could not have known that the land would be so

alkaline and salt effected, for they were not experts in Soil Science again

begs the question on what basis was then the said land selected. The

contention of accused O.S. Verma and H.P.S. Arya in this regard mainly

that it was the willingness of the land owners of the land in question that

had made them select the site, as already discussed herein above appears

to be a bundle of lies, for as narrated herein above, the record proved

during trial clearly shows that none of the socalled land owners were

present in the Village Kurar when the committee had inspected the site

and that the accused 3, 4 and 5 were only in touch with accused No. 1 and

52. Further the following material brought on record by

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the prosecution clearly shows that there had never been any intention of

accused No. 3 and 4 to get constructed any infrastructure for animals etc.

as laid down in the Project formulated by them and their sole intention

was to get the barren land of accused No. 1 and 2 developed:

The Project submitted for approval by accused O.S.

Verma to ICAR, Ex. PW31/A clearly mentions that six animal based

units will be set up on the site of the Project and that crossbred cows,

improved breeds of buffalo, goats, pigs, fish and poultry chics will either

be supplied by IVRI or will be bought from the open market for

establishing demonstration units at the site and temporary structures will

also be erected at Project cost. The said Project proposal also laid down

that the temporary animal units will be constructed by the end of July,

1992 and the animal based demonstration units will be completely

established by December, 1992. As per the said proposal, the land

reclamation by means of application of pyrites/gypsum would be

completed by July, 1992. In the said proposal, Rs. 1.5 lacs was sought for

the said reclamation and Rs. 1.7 lacs were sought for affixing two

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tubewells for farm mechanization. As regards the animal based units, Rs.

10 lacs was sought for the cost (fixed capital) of animals and animal sheds

and Rs. 2.5 lacs per annum was sought for working capital per annum for

feeds, fodder and concentrates. The said proposal was accepted by the

Committee set up by the ICAR with a few minor changes vide its report

Ex PW5/A8 and the sanction order dated 27.4.1992, Ex PW5/A9 was

issued by the ICAR. The said sanction order apportioned the sum of Rs.

10 Lacs over five years towards the cost of animals and animal sheds. The

said apportionment was however, objected to by the accused O.S. Verma

and he, vide his letter dated 11.5.1992, Ex. PW5/A 14 to ADG, ICAR

took a stand that if the fixed capital cost of Rs. 10 lacs for the animals and

the animal based units is split over five years, the purpose of the Project

would be selfdefeated. Taking into consideration this objection, the

ICAR issued an amended sanction order 9.11.1992, Ex.PW5/18 along

with a revised statement of costs as per which Rs. 10 lacs could be

utilized towards costs of animals and animal sheds in the first year itself.

Yet, despite the above, admittedly not a single animal was purchased nor a

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shed constructed on the Project site during the entire Project period of

five years. Very interestingly, the submission of accused O.S.Verma in

this regard was that there was no point in purchasing animals till the land

could be reclaimed and the fodder plants could be irrigated thereon, for

without fodder, there would not have been anything to feed the animals.

However, on a query by this court as to why was then in the Project Rs.

2.5 lacs asked for as a working capital per annum for feeds and fodder

which was to be purchased from the open market, he had nothing to

submit. On behalf of accused H.P.S. Arya, a contention was however

made that the responsibility of construction of animal sheds or awarding

of contract for construction of animal sheds was the responsibility of the

Maintenance/Public and Supply Section and that the said Section did not

get the sheds ready and therefore, the animal units could not be set up and

therefore, the animals were not purchased. He has also submitted that

Kurar being a remote and isolated place had constraints for infrastructure

development and therefore, the tender process for construction of animal

sheds could not be successful three times and that in fact, on the last

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occasion, the selected contractor did not even turn up. However, none of

these constraints have been mentioned by both these accused persons in

their annual reports submitted during the Project period. All that is

mentioned in one of the Project reports submitted by accused H.P.S. Arya

for the year 19941995, Ex. X is that though the tenders for the purchase

of temporary sheds were processed, somehow, the purchase of

materials could not be made. It is unacceptable that both these accused

persons who were Principal/Project Investigators during different years of

the Project period could manage to get electricity connection/

transformers installed (as is apparent from their Project reports Ex

PW5/A25 and Ex PW7/14), roads constructed in such a remote area for

the purposes of reclamation of the barren land, they could not manage to

get temporary animal sheds constructed in a period of almost 5 years -

the said fact clearly brings out that they never had the intention to set up

such animal units on the Kurar Farm and their only purpose was to make

the barren land of accused No. 2 fertile. It is also relevant to mention here

that though, as narrated hereinabove, only two tube wells were to be

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bored as per the Project proposal and only an amount of Rs. 1.7 lacs was

to be spent thereon, order for four tube wells was placed and three of

them were bored as per the Project reports Ex. PW7/14 and 15 before the

Project was terminated. Admittedly, at no point of time, any permission in

this regard was taken by any of these accused persons from the ICAR

though the sanction order dated 27.4.1992 clearly stipulated that the

expenditure under different items has to be restricted to the amount

sanctioned for the same. The contention of both these accused persons is

that since the land was barren, more tube wells had to be bored and that

this was done as per the advice of the experts. Accused H.P.S. Arya has

further submitted that since he had taken over as the Principal

Investigator of the Project only in October 1993, he had to merely

continue and complete the work that had been started by the accused O.S.

Verma and that no fault can be attributed to him if, during his tenure also,

work was done only towards reclamation of the land. He has also tried to

point out that page 46 of the File D7 which is the progress report for the

year 1991/1992 submitted by the accused O.S. Verma, mentions that the

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order for four tube wells was given as per the advice of the State

Irrigation Engineers. In the considered opinion of this court, none of

these accused persons, especially accused H.P.S. Arya can be allowed to

take a plea that they were constrained to bore additional bore wells only

because the land turned out to be so unfertile and unfit that the expert

namely, the State Irrigation Engineer suggested the same to them for on

15.1.1994, the Zonal Coordinator of ICAR after inspecting the Project site

in the presence of the accused H.P.S. Arya submitted his report Ex.

PW42/D wherein he depreciated the act of installing four tube wells on

Kurar Farm and questioned how this kind of nonrecurring and heavy

investments were being made on land that did not belong to the IVRI and

was to be returned to the owners after the completion of the Project

period. In fact, the accused O.S.Verma himself in all his Project

proposals/reports had repeatedly undertaken that only temporary

structures would be installed on the Project which would be taken away

by the IVRI at the end of the Project period and therefore there is no

justification for him to have increased the number of tube wells to double

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the number sanctioned and to take a plea that the same was necessitated

due to the infertility of the land. In fact, had these accused persons been

honest scientists, as being contended by them, after receiving the report

Ex. PW23/A1 dated 18.10.1992 from CSSRI that the land was highly

alkaline and would require a period of at least three years to be reclaimed,

they would have brought the said fact to the notice of the ICAR

immediately and recommended that the Project had turned out to be non

viable and required reorientation of its operation and objectives. In fact,

the sanction order issued by the ICAR to meet such situations only

stipulated that within six months of the start of the Project, a report

should be submitted to them so that the viability of the Project could be

examined before the remaining funds could be disbursed. The accused

O.S. Verma instead of submitting the six monthly report on time,

submitted the same, Ex. PW7/ B1 on 17.8.1993 that is almost after a

delay of one year by which time sufficient amount of disbursed/

sanctioned amount had already been spent on the Project. Similarly,

accused H.P.S. Arya after being appointed as Principal Investigator of the

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Project in October 1993 instead of taking note of the report of R.N Rai

and immediately recommending reorientation of the Project waited till

August 1995 to submit in his Annual Report for the year 19941995, Ex

PW7/15 that land being problematic could be better utilized for livestock

units instead of plant based units. The said omission on the part of H.P.S.

Arya cannot be brushed aside lightly more so taking into consideration

his active role in selecting the Kurar Farm for the Project which clearly

brings out his connivance with accused No. 1 and 2.

53. In view of the discussion hereinabove, in the

considered opinion of this Court, the prosecution has been able to prove

the third circumstance also in the link of circumstances necessary to

prove its case against the accused persons No. 1 to 5.

54. The fourth circumstance that is being relied upon by

the prosecution to show that the sole intention behind the initiation of the

Project was the development of the barren land belonging to accused No.

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1 and 2 are the reports dated 7.10.1994 and 26.03.1996, Ex. PW30/A1

and Ex. PW8/2 respectively. Though the Ld. Defence Counsels have

submitted various contentions with respect to the report Ex. PW8/2,

none of the accused persons have challenged the report Ex. PW30/A1 in

any manner. As regards the report Ex. PW8/2, admittedly vide letter

dated 26.03.1996, the Director of IVRI had constituted a Technical

Committee comprising of three Senior Scientists Dr. N. Sharma, Dr. P.N.

Kaul and Sh. S.N. Jha, to review the progress of the Project and the said

Committee had submitted the aforementioned report wherein it had made

interalia the following observations:

From the technical programme as indicated
in the scheme, it is apparent that basically the programmes do not
fall strictly under the mandate of IVRI, which is primarily
extension programmes in livestock health, production and
technology. The basic emphasis of the Project appears to be
development of waste land and as such the Project should have

gone, if necessary, to other appropriate institute dealing with the
development of waste land.

55. Further, after going through the documents reflecting

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the expenditure that had already been made on the Project without there

being any progress, it was also observed by the said Committee that the

Project should be terminated immediately as it did not justify any

extension whatsoever. The contention of the Ld. Prosecutors is that the

aforementioned report clearly reveals that the Project was never viable

and was not even within the mandate of IVRI and thus proves the

connivance of the accused persons in implementing the Project only for

the development of the land belonging to accused No. 1 and 2 and thereby

causing a wrongful gain to accused No. 1 and 2 and the corresponding

wrongful loss to the government.

56. In rebuttal to the said contentions of the Ld.

Prosecutors, the Ld. Defence Counsels have pointed out that two of the

own prosecution witnesses namely PW9 Dr. Aditya Narayan Shukla,

ADG, ICAR and PW20 Prof. V.L. Chopra, DG, ICAR have both stated in

their crossexamination that the Project was within the mandate of IVRI

and that it was viable also. They have also pointed out that Dr. P.N. Kaul,

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a member of the aforementioned Committee was also a member of the

Extension Council Committee, IVRI which had approved the Project and

therefore their contention is that Dr. Kaul could not have given an

observation in the report Ex. PW8/2 that the Project was never viable. It

has also been contended by the Ld. Defence Counsels that the fact that

the Committee gave its report Ex. PW8/2 on 26.3.1996 i.e on the same

date on which it was set up clearly proves that without even going through

the details of the Project, the Committee gave its observations on the

basis of mere surmises and conjectures, merely at the instance of some

persons who had a vested interest in the termination of the Project.

According to Ld. Defence Counsels, the formulation and the execution of

the Project was done in public interest. They have submitted that the

evidence on record clearly shows that the Project had been formulated

upon receiving the representations of the farmers of Kurar Village and

therefore their contention is that none of the IVRI officials who have been

arrayed as accused persons in the present case, can be held guilty of

misconduct only because the Project could not succeed in its objectives.

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Their contention is that many times a government Project runs into losses

but that the said fact itself cannot be used as a yardstick for holding the

officials responsible for the execution of the Project, guilty of

misconduct. Ld Defence counsels have also relied upon on various

judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the Hon'ble High Courts in

support of this contention (the said judgments have already been listed in

para 21 of this judgment). On behalf of accused H.P.S Arya various

representations assertedly made by the Pradhans of the Villages

surrounding Kurar, available in the official files have been pointed out, to

also contend that the Project did infact bring various benefits to the

farmers.

57. This court has gone through the entire judicial dicta

referred to by the Ld. Defence Counsels. Though this court completely

agrees with the Defence that if a Project formulated and executed in

public interest runs into losses, the public officers responsible for the

implementation of the Project cannot be held guilty of criminal

misconduct, however, the Project in the present case does not at all appear

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to have been formulated and implemented in the public interest at all. As

discussed in the preceding paragraphs, the evidence brought on record by

the prosecution has sufficiently proved that right from its inception, the

Project was formulated solely with a view to develop the barren land of

accused No. 1 and 2 and not to benefit the farmers of Village Kurar,

though on record it was sought to be reflected that the Project was

formulated on receiving the representations of the farmers and in their

interest. A perusal of the representations received by the IVRI clearly

shows that all that the farmers of Village Kurar wanted was to be made

aware of technology that could improve their husbandry and livestock

activities. The said needs of the farmers, as sought to be contended by the

prosecution, could have been easily met by the usual extension activities

being conducted by the IVRI namely holding demonstration camps etc.

No doubt the defence is also right in contending that IVRI was not bound

to only follow its extension activities and its objectives clearly envisaged

setting up innovative Projects but in view of the evidence that has been

brought on record during trial and discussed in the preceding paragraphs,

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this court is constrained to observe that in the garb of innovation, all that

the accused No. 3, 4 and 5 wanted to do was to develop the barren land of

accused No. 1 and 2. The Project on paper was projected as innovative

and first of its kind where instead of conducting routine extension

activities, the IVRI sought to demonstrate on a piece of land, the

integration of agricultural and livestock activities and therefore, the

Extension Council of IVRI and Special Committee, ICAR can be stated

to have been justified in giving their approval to the Project in principle.

What was of utmost importance for the successful implementation of this

Project was the selection of land and had the same been honestly done by

accused No. 3, 4 and 5 perhaps the probability of the Project being

successful would have been much higher. However, as discussed in the

preceding paragraphs, the evidence brought on record by the prosecution

clearly shows that it is not that the land was chosen for the Project but

infact it was the Project that was chosen to develop the barren land of

accused No. 1 and 2. The representations pointed out on behalf of H.P.S.

Arya available on official files only indicate that the residents of the

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villages surrounding the Kurar farm were benefited by the extension

activities namely holding camps for treatment of animals and were not

benefited by the development of the Kurar Farm. None of the said

representations mention the fact that three tube wells, two electricity

transformers affixed on Kurar Farm and roads built in and around the said

farm in any manner benefited the residents of the Village Kurar. In this

regard it now becomes very relevant to take note of the report dated

7.10.1994, Ex. PW30/A1 proved on record by PW30, Dr. B.B.L. Mathur

and which has not been challenged by the Defence. This witness has

deposed that he was invited as a Special invitee to a meeting of the

Extension Council of IVRI held on 23.03.1994 and that during the said

meeting, the project at the Kurar Farm was discussed and he has proved

the proceedings of the said meeting as Ex. PW30/A. A perusal of the

said proceedings show that the Extension Council on 23.03.1994

constituted a Committee comprising of one Dr. B.B Malik as its

Chairman, this witness and three other scientists as its members and the

accused H.P.S Arya as its Member Secretary and directed that this

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Committee should visit the Project at Kurar Farm, talk to the concerned

people including all authorities and then submit a report with respect to

the status of the Project and the desirability of restructuring it. This

witness has further deposed that the aforementioned Committee had

inspected the site of the Project and thereafter the report Ex. PW30/A1

was submitted by the Committee. As per the contents of this report, this

Committee, of which the accused H.P.S Arya was also a member,

interalia observed that the 50 acres of land taken for the Project was

saline and unproductive and that the Project did not suit to the

requirement of the farmers of this area and that the original report of the

Project needs to be reoriented as extensioncumservice project rather

that farm demonstration. It becomes necessary now to reproduce some

important portions of the report containing the aforementioned

observations for none of the accused persons have challenged the contents

of this report during the crossexamination of PW30. The said portions

are as follows:

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" The full Committee met on 28.09.1994 and had detailed
deliberations. The Committee Members observed that the most of the activities are based on
farm demonstration. A block of 50 acres of land, which was saline and unproductive, was
taken for the project on Rs. 1.00 Lakh as annual rent/land use share. The Committee also
observed that the term Integrated Livestock Technology and Extension Project with the
present set up does not fulfil the objectives through its envisaged programme, since very
little work has been done........................................
....................................................................................................................

........................ The Committee had an opportunity to discuss the activities and related matters with the following farmers of different villages surrounding the 50 acres of land area taken for the Project by us. The names of the farmers are given below:

1.Sh. S. Ranjit Singh, Village Kurar.

2.Sh. S. Major Singh, Village Kurar.

3.Sh. Ram Chandra Munim, Village Mohammadpur.

4.Sh. Ram Chandra Village Ganeshpur.

5.Sh. Ram Singh, Village Mohammadpur.

6.Sh. Taraddar Khan, Village Sarai Aghat.

The approximate population of the villagers surrounding Kurar is as follows: Name of Village Population 1. Nagala Magar 600

2. Kurar 1500

3. Ganeshpur 1000

4. Gilonda 2000

5. Laholi Nagara 1700

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7. Pal Nagara 200

8. Mohammadpur 1200 9 Sardar Farm 200 ____________________________________ Total : 9400 ______________________________________ After thorough discussion on the matter by the Members of the Committee with the farmers, it was understood that the original project programme does not suit to the requirement of the farmers of this area. It was pointed out again and again that the farm demonstration may not have the desired impact. The impact will be far better and at desirable level, if the programme is altered by creating all channels of extension service activities leading to farmer's door. Sixteen farmers submitted a memorandum to the Committee personally. The memorandum contained the request for enhancing the speed of work whatever was envisaged for the Project for the benefit and improvement of economic condition of the farmers through various animal husbandry practices and in the allied fields. However, they have requested for solving the problems relating to animal husbandry, setting up diary unit with the farmers, providing technical knowledge in respect of the fisheries, solving various problem in poultry raising and provide technical knowledge in the filed of agriculture and allied fields. .........................." (emphasis supplied).

58. The aforementioned observations of the Committee of which even the accused H.P.S Arya was a member not only yet again proves that the Kurar Farm was not fertile and was infact barren and unsuited for agriculture, it also clearly shows that the original Project itself cannot be stated to have been envisaged in public interest of the C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 108 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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farmers of the area and what the farmers had required was the know how to solve their problems relating to animal husbandry. Further, it also supports the Technical Committee report, Ex PW8/2 which also mentioned that the basic emphasis of the Project appears to be development of waste land.

59. No doubt the prosecution's own witnesses, PW9 and PW20 have deposed that the Project was within the mandate of IVRI, however as discussed hereinabove, the execution of the Project on Kurar Farm led only to the development of the said waste land and therefore, in the considered opinion of this Court both the reports Ex. PW30/A1 and Ex. PW8/2 do clearly corroborate the other circumstances already proved by the prosecution to contend that the sole intention behind the initiation of the Project was the development of the barren land belonging to accused No. 1 and 2. The report Ex. PW8/2 also clearly reflects that a total amount of Rs. 43.96 lacs was spent on the Project without there being any fulfillment of the objectives of the Project (the said amount of expenditure is also mentioned and proved vide Ex. PW7/16) and it is C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 109 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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therefore clear that the acts of the accused persons No. 1 to 5 which they committed in pursuance of the criminal conspiracy entered between them caused a loss of this amount to the government.

60. In the considered opinion of this Court, all the aforementioned circumstances proved by the prosecution are sufficient to hold that the accused No. 3 to 5 abused their public offices to cause pecuniary gain to accused No. 1 and 2 in pursuance of the criminal conspiracy that they entered with these accused persons to cheat the government and get the land of accused No. 1 and 2 developed at government expense. Though it has been brazenly contended by these accused persons before this Court that many a times government projects result into losses and that if not the land of accused No. 1 and 2, then land belonging to some other person would have benefited from the Project and that therefore no fault should be found with their acts, which they had committed in public interest, in the considered opinion of this Court, the official notings and the various reports of the Committees referred to by C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 110 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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this Court clearly prove that accused No. 3 to 7 have abused their positions as public servants and none of their acts can be stated to have been done in public interest. Having regard to the entirety of circumstances which have been proved on record by the prosecution by no stretch of imagination can it be inferred that these accused persons acted in public interest in formulating and executing a Project whose sole purpose was to benefit the land of accused No. 1 and 2. The circumstances proved on record sufficiently prove that though on official files, the Project was ostensibly shown to have been formulated and executed in public interest of farmers, the sole intention of accused No. 1 to 5 was to get the land of accused No. 1 and 2 developed at government expenses. As such it is hereby held that the prosecution has proved the roles played in the conspiracy by each of the accused No. 1 to 5 (as ascribed to them in para 28 of this judgment). They all are thus to be held guilty for the offences punishable under section 420 and 120B IPC. Further, all accused except accused No. 2 are to be held guilty of the offence defined under section 13 (1) (d) of the PC Act and punishable C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 111 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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under section 13 (2) of the IPC.

61. Coming now, to the role of accused No. 6 and 7 namely Dr. P.N Mathur and Dr. C. Prasad, Asstt. Director General, ICAR and Deputy Director General, ICAR, in the conspiracy in question, the contention of Ld. Prosecutors is that it is both these officials who managed to get the Project approved by the ICAR by bypassing the laid down procedure for the approval of such a Project. Ld. Public Prosecutors have pointed out that as per Section IV Procedure for processing for approval: of "General Guidelines for the Formulation, Processing, Scrutiny, Sanction, Implementation and Evaluation of Research Schemes to be financed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research from its Agricultural Produce Cess Funds" exhibited as Ex. PW9/1, the accused No. 6 who was the then Assistant Director General of ICAR, was bound to have sent the Project for seeking detailed comments, to two referees who are specialists in the field, before putting the Project for consideration of the Project Screening Committee. It is the C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 112 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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submission of the Ld. PP's that instead of following the said procedure, the accused No. 6 and accused No. 7 who was then the Deputy Director General, ICAR got a Special Committee formed to consider the Project and the accused No. 6 was nominated by accused No. 7 as Member Secretary of the said Special Committee so as to ensure that the Project is approved by the said Committee. Thus, according to the Ld. Prosecutors, the role of the said two accused persons in the conspiracy was to get the Project sanctioned by the ICAR and the fact that they bypassed the procedure laid down in this regard proves the said role. It is also the submission of the Ld. Prosecutors that the complicity of these two accused persons is also evident from a letter Ex. PW5/A32, which was a letter written by accused No. 3 to accused No. 6. Ld. Public Prosecutors have pointed out that accused No. 3 had been repeatedly communicating with accused No. 6 to press his demand for providing vehicles at the Project site, which had been rejected by the Ministry of Finance at the time of the sanction of the Project and vide the aforementioned letter accused No. 3 had yet again pressed the said demand and had marked a C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 113 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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copy of the said letter to accused No. 1 also. The contention of Ld. Public Prosecutors is that there was no earthly reason for accused No. 3 to have marked a copy thereof to accused No. 1 unless of course he was acting at the behest of accused No. 1 and wanted to remind accused No. 6 of the interest of accused No. 1. The Ld. Public Prosecutors have also pointed out that the reply, Ex. PW5/A33 given by accused No. 6 to this letter of accused No. 3 also makes it apparent the extent to which these government officials were ready to oblige with the accused No. 1, for in this reply the accused No. 6 informs that for the setting up of a Kisan Vikas Kendra, new vehicles are allowed to be sanctioned and therefore advises accused No. 3 to formulate a fresh proposal for a new Kisan Vikas Kendra on the same land at Kurar. It has also been pointed out that the notings prepared by accused No. 6 which appear on page 26 of file Ex. PW5/A and proved by PW5 before the issuance of the said reply reveal that he had given the said reply on the advice of accused No. 7.

Additionally, as against accused No. 6 the allegation is also that he intentionally ignored the observations of Dr. R.N. Rai, in report Ex. C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 114 of 117

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PW42/D and deliberately allowed the Project to run.

62. Ld Defence Counsel Sh. Ehraz Ahmed for accused No. 6 and 7 in rebuttal to the aforementioned contentions of the Ld. Prosecutors has contended that the evidence being relied upon by the prosecution can by no stretch of imagination be sufficient to hold that these two accused persons had acted at the instance of accused No. 1 or 3 in getting the Project sanctioned by ICAR. He has pointed out that the notings Ex. PW5/A1 in the file D2, Ex PW5/A clearly reveal that on 22.2.1992 directions had been received by the ICAR from the Agricultural Minister, Sh. Balram Jakhar to examine the Project on priority basis and be approved within the financial year. It has been further pointed out by him that keeping in view the priority and urgency of the Project, accused No. 7 had vide his notings Ex. PW5/A2 merely suggested to the then Director General, ICAR, Prof. Virender Lal Chopra that though normally the Project has to go to two referees for their comments, it may be referred to a Special Committee as the said C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 115 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

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procedure may take around 6 months time and it was the said Director General who had finally taken the call for constituting a Special Committee. It has been further pointed out that Prof. Virender Lal Chopra has been examined by prosecution as PW20 and the said witness has categorically deposed before the court that it was he who had finally approved the setting up of the Special Committee and also had approved the Constitution of the said Committee. It has also been pointed out that the said witness has also deposed that the composition of the Committee was very balanced and that the Project was technically examined by the Committee in its entirety. Thus, it is the submission of Ld. Counsel Sh. Ahmed that merely because keeping in view the directions received from the then Agriculture Minister, PW7 suggested an alternate route for approval of the Project, it cannot be stated that he had connived with any of the other accused persons to get the Project sanctioned. It is also his submission that accused No. 6 was merely the Member Secretary of the Committee whose main job was to put the agenda before the Committee and that it cannot at all be inferred that he could have influenced the C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 116 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

Chairman and the other members of the Committee to approve the Project.

63. As regards the communications Ex. PW5/A32 and PW5/A33, the submission of Ld. Counsel is that since despite the Ministry of Finance rejecting the sanctioning of purchase of any new vehicles for the Project, accused No. 3 had been repeatedly writing letters to the ICAR and insisting and pressurizing accused No. 6 and 7 that the vehicles be provided for the Project, the said accused persons merely informed him that new vehicles can only be sanctioned for the setting up for a Kisan Vikas Kendra and suggested to him that in case he was so desirable of getting the vehicles sanctioned, he can formulate a fresh proposal for the same. Thus, according to Ld. Counsel merely suggesting an alternative procedure to accused No. 3 for getting the new vehicle sanctioned, cannot by any stretch of imagination be taken as an act of conspiracy by accused No. 6 and 7.

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 117 of 117

Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

64. Additionally, on behalf of accused No. 6 it has been contended by Ld. Counsel Sh. Ahmed that the allegation made against him that he deliberately ignored the observations of Dr. R.N. Rai is completely baseless and contrary to the own record of the prosecution. In support of this contention Ld. Counsel has relied upon certain file notings made in file Ex. PW5/A2 and file Ex. PW30/A and a document Ex.

PW48/DY in file D3, all filed on judicial record by the prosecution itself.

65. I have carefully considered the submissions made by both the Ld. Counsels and in the considered opinion of this court taking into consideration the evidence brought on record by the prosecution, it will have to be held that the same is not sufficient to hold the accused persons 6 & 7 guilty of the offences with which they have been charged with namely that of criminal misconduct and criminal conspiracy. As pointed out by the Ld. Defence Counsel the notings proved on record do reveal that the only reason that these accused persons had suggested the C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 118 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

setting up of a Special Committee was the directions received from the then Agricultural Minister. It is also to be taken note that the guidelines referred to by the Ld. Prosecutors itself also envisages a situation where the comments from the referees are not received within six weeks from the dispatch of the Project to them and clearly lays down that in the absence of the same the Project without such comments will be put up for consideration of the Project Screening Committee. In other words, the guidelines themselves do not make it mandatory for the approval of each and every Project that the comments of two referees should be received in respect of the same. In the considered opinion of this court, the mere suggestion of accused No. 7 to the Director General, ICAR to constitute a Special Committee to examine the Project cannot be held to tantamounting so unreasonable and against public interest that the only inference drawn is that he was acting only in the interest of the accused No. 1. It is to be borne in mind that the ICAR was not made aware till the sanction of the Project that it was the land of accused no. 1 that had been chosen for the Project by IVRI. There is also no other evidence on record C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 119 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

to connect the accused No. 6 or 7 with the conspiracy hatched between the other accused persons and therefore, in the absence of the same, the only circumstance of these accused persons suggesting the setting up of a Special Committee cannot be held sufficient to hold them guilty of connivance with the other accused persons. As pointed out by the Ld. Defence Counsel, PW20 has clearly deposed in his evidence that the constitution of the Special Committee was balanced and the record shows that it comprised of the ICAR officials of the rank of DDG and ADG besides a Joint Commissioner from the Ministry of Agriculture. In such view of the matter it is difficult to imagine that only because P.N. Mathur was the Member Secretary of the said Committee he would have influenced the other member of approving the Project in question. In the considered opinion of this Court, the ICAR officials seemed to have acted in the manner that they did only because of the directions of the then Agricultural Minister that the Project was to be examined on priority basis and was to be approved within the financial year. As has been pointed out by Ld. Defence Counsel the said desire of the then Minister C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 120 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

had been communicated to the ICAR only on 22.02.1992 and therefore, they had only 37 days to examine and to approve the same. As regards the communications Ex. PW5/A32 & 33 this court again agrees with the Ld. Defence Counsel that the same cannot be read to infer that the accused 6 & 7 were ready to go to any length to oblige accused No. 1. Infact had these accused persons been under the influence of accused No. 1, there would not have been any occasion for the accused No. 3 to pressurize them by sending a copy of Ex. PW5/A32 to accused No. 1 for then they would have themselves acted in the interest of accused No. 1.

66. As regards the allegation against accused P.N. Mathur that he deliberately ignored the report of Sh. R.N Rai, Ex. PW42/D the file notings and the documents referred to by the Ld. Defence Counsel do indicate that the said allegation does not have much merit. The file notings from portion A34 to A34 on page 43 of file D2, Ex PW5/A2 proved by PW5 clearly show that when the report of Dr. R.N.Rai was put up before this accused on 28.02.1994, he recommended that further funds to the Project be stopped. Further the file notings from portion A38 to C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 121 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

A38 on page 4546 of file D2, Ex. PW5/A2, proved by PW5 also reveal that this accused sought an explanation from the Finance/Budget Section as to why the funds were released despite his recommendation to the contrary. Further on behalf of this accused, during the cross examination of the IO, Dinesh Khetrapal, PW48 this IO had been confronted with the letter Ex. PW48/DY and the IO admitted that the said letter had been written by this accused. A perusal of the said letter shows that the same was written by accused P.N. Mathur to the Director of Vigilance Department, ICAR, Sh. S.S Rana and in the said letter, this accused has pointed out various discrepancies in the execution of the Project by the IVRI. He has in particular questioned the authority of the IVRI in taking the date of the Project before its actual sanction by the ICAR and the release of funds by the Finance/Budget Section to the IVRI despite his recommendations to the contrary. In the considered opinion of this Court, the aforementioned notings and document pointed out by the accused P.N. Mathur thus lead to the conclusion that the allegation made by the prosecution against him namely that he ignored the report of Dr. C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 122 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

R.N Rai is without any basis.

67. In view of the discussion hereinabove, in the considered opinion of this court, the material being relied upon by the prosecution to contend that accused No. 6 and 7 were also guilty of having entered into a conspiracy with the remaining accused persons to get the Project cleared, is not sufficient to hold them guilty of the offences that they have been charged with. No doubt a suspicion does arise that there would have been some assistance/aid sought from these officials of ICAR in getting the Project approved however in the considered opinion of this Court, the prosecution has been unable to bring sufficient material on record to prove the said suspicion beyond all reasonable doubt.

68. In the considered opinion of this Court, in view of the discussion held in the preceding paragraphs, it is only the accused No. 3, 4 and 5 who can be held guilty under section 13 (d) of the PC Act and for having entered into a criminal conspiracy with accused No. 1 and 2 and C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 123 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

thereby for having committed along with accused No. 1 and 2 the offences punishable under section 420 and 120 BIPC and that the evidence on record is not sufficient for holding the accused 6 and 7 guilty of the said offences.

69. Coming now to the offence of cheating with which accused No. 1 and 2 have been separately charged with, the charges framed against them in this respect are that both of them had fraudulently on the basis of the letter dated 16.12.1991 claimed that they had been authorized by all the coowners of the Kurar Farm by means of powers of attorney executed in their favour to offer the said farm to the government for execution of the Project and had thus dishonestly induced the officials of IVRI and ICAR to approve the said land for the execution of the Project and had caused loss to the government to the tune of Rs.

4,14,676/ which was paid as rent to accused No. 2 for the said land. Ld. Prosecutors for CBI have submitted that though the letter dated 16.12.91 has been signed only by accused No.2, it was prepared at the behest of C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 124 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

accused No.1. It is the submission of the Ld. Prosecutors that this court must bear in mind that PWs 36, 46 and 47 have categorically deposed that they had executed power of attorneys in favour of accused No. 1 as he was in the government service and had assured them that he would look after the interest of Kurar Farm. According to the Ld. Prosecutors the said fact and the fact that accused No. 2 is only eighth class pass and cannot read or write English clearly shows that it was accused No. 1 who was actually the mastermind behind the submission of letter dated 16.12.91 to the IVRI officials and cheating the government. They have further pointed out that the testimony of PW36, PW46 and PW47 not only proves that they had executed power of attorneys Ex. PW39/A2 to A5 with respect to Kurar Farm in favour of accused No. 1 in the months of February/March 1992 only and that therefore on 16.12.1991, the accused No. 1 and 2 had no authority to deal with it but also reveals that the Kurar Farm was co owned by twelve persons and that therefore accused No. 1 and 2 in their letter dated 16.12.1991 had falsely claimed that the entire Kurar Farm measuring approximately 133 acres was jointly owned by accused No. 2 C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 125 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

and only four other persons and that she was authorized to offer it to the government on behalf of all its owners. They therefore, have contended that the prosecution has been able to conclusively prove that these two persons had cheated the government by means of this letter dated 16.12.1991.

70. On the other hand, Ld Counsel Sh. Anand Mishra on behalf of accused No. 1 and 2 has pointed out that even if on 16.12.91 the Kurar Farm was coowned by 12 and not 5 persons, no offence of cheating is made out against the accused No. 1 and 2 because the government was caused no loss due to the fact that the Kurar Farm was owned by twelve instead of five persons and further, that none of those coowners who were not mentioned in the letter dated 16.12.1991 had ever raised a dispute that they had been cheated of their land use dues by the accused Bhagwanti Devi. He has pointed out that the entire Kurar Farm was not offered to the Government and the deposition of PW5 proves that the land on which the Project was executed i.e the land in Khasra No. C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 126 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

749 and 747 measuring only 50 acres was owned by accused No. 2 and only four other persons namely Inderjeet, Sultan Singh, Kalawati and Baljeet Singh. He has further pointed out that three of these coowners in their testimony in the Court namely PW36, PW46 and PW47 have deposed that they are the relatives of accused No. 1 and 2 and it was accused No. 1 the husband of accused No. 2 who was looking after their land on their behalf and that they had executed power of attorneys in his favour and that accused No. 1 had further executed a power of attorney in favour of accused No. 2. Thus, according to the Ld. Defence Counsel Sh.

Mishra accused No. 2 was fully authorized to offer 50 acres of Kurar Farm to the Government and the mentioning by accused No. 2 in her letter dated 16.12.91 that the entire Kurar Farm was owned by her and only four other persons was merely an inadvertent mistake and had not been done with any intention to cause any loss to any person and that therefore neither accused No. 2 nor accused No. 1 who had not even signed the letter dated 16.12.91 can be held guilty of the offence of cheating.

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 127 of 117

Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

71. In the considered opinion of this court none of the contentions of Ld. Defence Counsel Shri Mishra have any real merit. It is unimaginable that claiming the entire Kurar farm measuring about 133 acres was owned by her and only four other persons, was a mere inadvertent mistake made by accused No. 2 in the letter 16.12.1991. Both accused No. 1 and 2 were aware that only four coowners of the Kurar Farm had executed power of attorney in favour of accused No. 1 and that therefore, the accused No. 2, in whose favour accused No. 1 had executed a power of attorney, could not have claimed the entire land use charges from the government on behalf of all the remaining eleven coowners of the Kurar farm with effect from 15.12.1991, when no partition of the Kurar Farm had taken place. Admittedly, the partition of the Kurar Farm had been done only in 1994 and therefore the accused No. 2 had no legal right whatsoever to claim before the said date that the fifty acres of undivided Kurar Farm that had been given to the IVRI was a part of her and only four other persons' share. It is for this reason that when C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 128 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

objections were raised by PW7 with respect to the land use charges being paid to accused No. 2 without there being available with the IVRI any documentary proof of accused No. 2 being authorized to claim the said charges on behalf of all the coowners of the Kurar Farm that the letter 16.12.1991 was fraudulently prepared and misrepresentation was made therein that the entire Kurar farm was only owned by the accused No. 2 and four other persons. The fact that this ante dated letter was submitted by accused No. 1 and 2 with the IVRI in February, 1993 has been discussed in detail in the preceding paras of this judgment and it is apparent that the preparation and submission of this ante dated letter was done only with a view to cover up the truth of connivance of accused No. 1 and 2 with accused No. 3, 4 and 5 and to somehow ensure that the accused No. 2 keeps on receiving the entire land user charges with respect to the Kurar Farm from the government. The said act in the considered opinion of this court clearly amounts to cheating which these accused persons committed in pursuance of the conspiracy entered by them with the remaining accused persons. The question here is not that none of the C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 129 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

other coowners of the Kurar Farm have come forward to dispute that accused No. 2 alone was not entitled to the land use charges but the issue here is that accused No. 1 and 2 in pursuance of the conspiracy entered by them with accused No. 3, 4 and 5 to get the barren Kurar Farm developed/reclaimed, prepared this fraudulent letter containing misrepresentation and thereby cheated the government by inducing it not only to start the Project on their land but also inducing it to pay the land user charges only to accused No. 2. In view thereof the said accused persons have to be held guilty for this offence of cheating also. Further, in view of the evidence discussed in detail hereinabove, the accused No. 1 is also to be held guilty of having committed the offence of criminal misconduct punishable under section 13 (2) read with section 13 (1) (d) of PC Act. Though much has been stated on behalf of accused No. 1 to contend that he had not offered the Kurar Farm for the Project and it is his wife accused No. 2 also was a coowner of the Kurar Farm, who had offered the said Farm on behalf of all its coowners and that he being the Personal Secretary to Agriculture Minister had in course of his official C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 130 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

duties, merely forwarded Ex. PW21/1 to ICAR and IVRI and that alone cannot be held sufficient to hold him guilty of either the offence of cheating, conspiracy or criminal misconduct, this Court does not find much merit in the said contentions. It cannot be lost sight of that PW36, PW46, PW47, the coowners of Kurar Farm have all deposed that they had executed the Power of Attorneys to deal with the Kurar Farm in favour of accused No. 1. The Power of Attorneys, Ex. PW39/A2 to A5 submitted with the IVRI also clearly show that the same were executed in favour of accused No. 1 only. Further, accused No. 1 also himself is admittedly a coowner of the Kurar Farm. It does not therefore lie in the mouth of accused No. 1 to contend that he had nothing to do with the offering of the Kurar Farm to the government. It is apparent that this accused executed a Power of Attorney to deal with the Kurar Farm in favour of his wife accused No. 2 only to use her as a shield to deviate any suspicion that would be raised against him for he was always aware that he, being a government servant, should not directly offer his land for a government project without any disclosure in respect thereto. Admittedly C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 131 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

his wife i.e accused No. 2 is only 8th class pass and does not know how to read or write English and therefore it was not even sought to contend that she had on her own written the various communications in English to the government herself. Interestingly, the submission that has been made is that it is PW40, Avdesh Dixit who had approached her and had made her aware of the Project and had convinced her to offer the Kurar Farm for the same and that she had not been informed of the Project by accused No. 1. In the considered opinion of this Court, no reasonable person would accept such a contention and the Ld. Defence Counsel should not expect a Court of Law to be so naïve so as to accept that a person holding the rank of Personal Secretary to the Agriculture Minister and forwarding communications relating to a government project had nothing to do with the fact that his own wife, in whose favour he himself had executed a Power of Attorney with respect to a land, was offering the said land to the government for the project. As regards the contention that this accused had forwarded the letter of the Agriculture Minister Ex. PW21/1 to ICAR and IVRI in the normal course of his official duties though it is C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 132 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

acceptable that being the Personal Secretary to Agriculture Minister it was his job to forward the same, it was not however his duty to put pressure on ICAR to get the Project started at the earliest. A perusal of Ex. PW21/1 shows that though the Agriculture Minister himself only communicated to Sh. Khurshid that he is having the matter regarding the establishment of Extension Centre or one KVI at Kurar, looked into it is this accused No. 1 who while forwarding the same to ICAR and IVRI made an endorsement to ICAR that the programme should be started at the earliest. Further, if this accused had no part in the conspiracy or interest in the Project, then there was no occasion for accused No. 3 to have sent a copy of Ex. PW5/A32 to him with an endorsement that as promised by him, he must speak to DDG, ICAR about the two vehicles to be procured for the Project. Infact the entire voluminous evidence discussed hereinabove makes it abundantly clear that accused No. 1 was the key conspirator behind the conspiracy. The contention that since apart from endorsing Ex. PW21/1 to ICAR and IVRI, he had not taken any other steps during the entire period when the project was initiated and C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 133 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

executed and therefore should not be held guilty of any conspiracy, has hardly any merit for it is well settled law that in case of a criminal conspiracy, it is not necessary that each conspirator must know all the details of the scheme or be a participant at every stage. Specific reference in this regard is made to the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court pronounced in Ajay Aggarwal's case (Supra) the judgment relied upon by the Ld. PP). For the same reasons, the contention made on behalf of accused No. 5 namely that he had been transferred from the post of Director, IVRI in MayJune, 1992 and therefore had nothing to do with the further progress of the Project and therefore cannot be held guilty of the land of accused No. 1 and 2 getting developed, has to be rejected. This accused, as discussed in the preceding paragraphs did his role in the conspiracy before his transfer by not only getting the circular Ex. PW3/A issued but also by issuing Ex. PW5/A12 thereby ensuring that land of accused No. 1 and 2 is shown to have been taken into possession w.e.f 15.12.1991. It is to be reiterated that each of the accused namely 1,3, 4 and 5 at one or the other stage of the conspiracy abused their offices to C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 134 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

cause pecuniary benefit to accused No. 1 and 2 and it is hardly relevant that all of them were not participants of the Project at its every stage. This court also finds it relevant to mention at this stage that all the file notings/reports etc. relied upon by the prosecution have not only been put to the accused persons under section 313 CrPC by the Ld. Predecessor of this Court but even this Court during the course of final arguments had made it clear that all the accused persons are at liberty to file additional written submissions/statements explaining the said notings/reports if they so desire and the said opportunity was availed by the accused persons and they had filed additional written submissions on record which have all been taken into consideration by this Court.

72. In view of the detailed discussion hereinabove, this Court is of the considered opinion that the prosecution has been able to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that accused No. 3, 4 and 5, the officials of IVRI had entered into a criminal conspiracy with accused No. 1 and 2 to get their land developed at government expense and I pursuance thereof cheated the government and all of them except accused C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 135 of 117 Judgment in the matter of:-

CC No. 42/11

(C.B.I. Vs. Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors Dated : 23.01.2016.

No. 2 had abused their official position to cause undue pecuniary benefit to accused No. 1 and 2 at the expense of the Central Government. Thus, all of these accused No.1 to 5 are hereby held guilty of the offences punishable under section 120B read with section 420 of IPC and section 13 (1) (d) and 13 (2) of the PC Act. Further all these accused persons except accused no. 2 are also held guilty of the substantive offence defined under section 13 (1) (d) and punishable under section 13 (2) of the PC Act. Accused no. 1 & 2 are also held guilty of the substantive offence under section 420 IPC. Accused No. 6 & 7 are hereby acquitted of all the offences for which they have faced trial.

Announced in the Open Court On the 23rd January, 2016.

(ANU GROVER BALIGA) SPECIAL JUDGE : C.B.I. (P.C.ACT) DWARKA COURTS, NEW DELHI.

C.C. No: 42/ 2011 Page 136 of 117

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(C.B.I. vs . Brij Lal Bhadu & Ors on 23 January, 2016