Document Fragment View
Fragment Information
Showing contexts for: vigilance in Kanchan Kumar vs The State Of Bihar on 14 September, 2022Matching Fragments
PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA J.
1. Leave granted.
2. This appeal is against the concurrent dismissals by the Trial1 and the High Court2 of the application for discharge filed by the Appellant under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 19733.
Reason: 1 Special Judge (Vigilance), Patna, in Special Case No. 9 of 2000 dated 28.03.2016.
2 High Court of Judicature at Patna, in Criminal Miscellaneous No. 23031 of 2016 dated 05.10.2016.
4. In the meanwhile, life moved on and in 1996, the Appellant joined the Oil and Natural Gas Commission5 as Deputy General Manager on deputation, keeping his lien with the BSFC. Four years after joining ONGC, an FIR came to be registered against him on 21.02.2000, under Sections 13(l)(d) and 13(2) of the 4 hereinafter referred to as ‘the BSFC’.
5 hereinafter referred to as ‘the ONGC’.
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 6, on the same allegation that he possessed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. These alleged assets were purportedly acquired during his tenure with the BSFC, and consequently, the check period in the FIR was considered from the date he joined BSFC, i.e., 19.07.1974 to the date of registration of the residential house purchased by him, i.e., 29.08.1988. The Appellant wrote a letter to the Director General of Police (Vigilance), Patna, on 18.04.2002, raising a grievance that the calculations in the FIR undervalued his income and overvalued his assets, thus depicting a false and inflated account of his expenditure.
16.2 The first objection pertains to the inclusion an amount of Rs. 55,000, recorded as the balance amount in the Appellant’s bank account during the check period, and accordingly counted as an expenditure in the charge sheet. However, the Bank Passbook filed by the Appellant, which was available to the Investigation Officer and the Special Judge (Vigilance), evidently records a balance amount of only Rs. 11,998 during the check period. The difference in the figures was not explained by the Prosecution. Accordingly, the Special Judge (Vigilance) and the High Court failed to reconcile such a simple and straightforward inconsistency in the Prosecution’s evidence. We are of the opinion that only an amount of Rs. 11,998, recorded in the Appellant’s Bank Passbook during the checkperiod as the balance amount, is validly admissible as expenditure under this head. 16.3 The second objection relates to the inclusion of an amount of Rs. 53,467 as expenditure towards repayment of the loan from the BSFC. However, the amount repaid towards loan instalments was already deducted from Appellant’s gross salary, and the deducted figure was recorded as the total disposable income with the Appellant during the check period. Hence, the loan repayment cannot be separately counted as an expenditure yet again. This is a glaring mistake. The Special Judge (Vigilance) as well as the High Court did not consider this objection on the ground that a roving inquiry is not permissible the stage of discharge.
18. The conclusions that we have drawn are based on materials placed before us, which are part of the case record. This is the same record that was available with the Special Judge (Vigilance) when the application under Section 227 of the Cr.P.C. was taken up. Despite that, the Special Judge (Vigilance) dismissed the discharge application on the simple ground that a roving inquiry is not permitted at the stage of discharge. What we have undertaken is not a roving inquiry, but a simple and necessary inquiry for a proper adjudication of an application for discharge. The Special Judge (Vigilance) was bound to conduct a similar inquiry for coming to a conclusion that a prima facie case is made out for the Appellant to stand trial. Unfortunately, the High Court committed the same mistake as that of the Special Judge (Vigilance).