Coming down heavily on the CBI for leaving “several holes” in the investigation of a corruption case involving two officers of the agency, a Special court has acquitted all the six accused.
“Had sincere efforts been made by the officers concerned of the investigating agency in the red-handed apprehension of arraigned accused persons on receipt of information of alleged crime by surveillance of phones for subsequent collection of secondary electronic evidence… then there was every likelihood of the fate of this matter to have been altogether different,” Special Judge Gurvinder Pal Singh observed while acquitting the accused persons.
Inspector Yoginder Kumar and Assistant Sub-Inspector Rajeev Panwar (since dead) were allegedly involved in coercing a member of the group housing society to own his forged signature on a letter declaring his resignation from the Society as genuine. The Inspector had allegedly done this at the instance of an office-bearer of the Society who was controlling its affairs.
When the Inspector failed to coerce the member into admitting the forged signature as his own, he allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs.10 lakh from the office-bearer to help him in the case, which later reduced to Rs.8 lakh.
There was an approver in the case and the Special Unit of the investigating agency had intercepted as many as 50 calls relating to the alleged demand and acceptance of bribe in the case, yet the court acquitted all the accused as it found several loopholes in the investigation.
“It is beyond comprehension as to why no trap had been laid to apprehend red-handed any of the arraigned accused while demanding or accepting bribe despite availability of ample opportunities with the seasoned officers of the premier investigating agency available at the elbow of the Special Unit of CBI,’’ Mr. Singh made this observation in his 107-page judgment on the quality of the investigation.
