Jharkhand High Court
Ashok Kumar vs Union Of India Thr Cbi on 23 April, 2012
Author: Jaya Roy
Bench: Jaya Roy
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
A.B.A. No 535 of 2012
Ashok Kumar ....... Petitioner
Versus
Union of India through C.B.I. ..... Opp. Party.
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CORAM : HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE JAYA ROY
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For the Petitioner(s) : Mr. Indrajit Sinha, Advocate
For the C.B.I. : Mr. Md. Kokhtar Khan, Advocate.
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05/ 23.04.12Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned counsel for the C.B.I.
2. The petitioner is an accused in a case registered under Sections 120B/420/467/468/471/of the I.P.C. and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
3. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner has not committed any offence as alleged and he has falsely been implicated in this case. It is also submitted that the petitioner while working in the capacity of the Junior Engineer, he prepared MBs and O/A bills which were counter signed by the Assistant Engineer. It is further submitted that the petitioner has no authority in regard to demand of the bill of the contractor, checking of the Bitumen, invoices, sending for verification of the Invoices. It is further submitted that there is no allegation for non-completion of work or for using the sub- standerd materials. It is also submitted that work has completed long long ago and the contractor received the final bill including the security earnest money and contractor has also received the completion certificate. The present case has been registered after five years i.e. in the year 2010 though the work order was issued on 3.9.2004 and the work was completed on 2.5.2005.
4. Mr. Sinha has further contended that the petitioner could not be held responsible as petitioner was working in the capacity of Junior Engineer has not signed on the false, fabricated, forged, bitumen invoices and also he has not committed any criminal misconduct as no bitumen invoices was signed/ countersigned/ verified by the petitioner. It is worth to mention herein that there is no deliberate intention on the part of the petitioner for committing any forgery as alleged in the prosecution case.
5. Mr. Mokhtar Khan, the learned counsel appearing for the C.B.I. has submitted that the petitioner while working in the capacity of Junior Engineer, prepared the MBs and O/A bills pertaining to the work, Construction from Karma to Mahudi Road in Kms.0 to 6.8, for payment and also certified the same, in order to extend undue benefit to the contractor by facilitating payment of his bills, He committed criminal misconduct in certifying these MBs and O/A bills, as no bitumen against the 5 forged/fake bitumen invoices was ever supplied by the Oil Company to the contractor. He with deliberate intent did not ensure utilisation of proper amount of bitumen in the contractual work and rather facilitated payment to the contractor on the basis of purported utilisation of bitumen shown to be procured through fake forged invoices.
6. Mr. Khan has further submitted that five bitumen invoices for 82.312 MT worth Rs.21,31,507/- were found to be fake and in this way a huge loss has been caused to the Government to the tune of more than 21 lakhs. Therefore, the petitioner is not at all entitled to get anticipatory bail.
7. Considering the submissions made by the parties and considering the materials on records, I find that the petitioner who was Junior Engineer at the relevant time has misused his position and help the contractor to the received the payment against the fake invoices. Therefore, I am not inclined to grant anticipatory bail to the petitioner. Accordingly the prayer for anticipatory bail of the petitioner stands rejected.
(Jaya Roy, J) Anit