CBI in its ‘strange wisdom’ gives clean chit to 3 in PF fraud case

While the Central Bureau of Investigation gave a clean chit to three directors of a private company in a Rs.169-crore Provident Fund fraud case and booked its employee instead, a special CBI court on Thursday expressed its displeasure at the agency using its “strange wisdom”. It summoned the CBI saying it is anybody’s guess that the ultimate beneficiary of the crores of rupees was the company and its directors.

The case pertains to the manipulation of liability of PF by M/s B.L. Kashyap & Sons (BLKS) Ltd engaged in acquiring any estate and constructing buildings, etc., by creating false data about the number of employees and, thereby, causing wrongful gain of Rs.169 crore to the company.

The CBI booked the then Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner S.K. Khanna, the then enforcement directorate C.S. Gogna and the company’s employee Ashok Kumar, but gave a clean chit to the directors of the company.

“The CBI in its strange wisdom has given clean chit to the directors of the company for the reasons best known to them, which is not appreciated by this court,” Special CBI judge Swarna Kanta Sharma said. The court summoned Vinod Kashyap, Vineet Kashyap and Vikram Kashyap, the three directors of the firm, besides summoning the accused named by the CBI.

“A perusal of the file shows that at the relevant time Vinod Kashyap was the director, Vineet Kashyap was Managing Director and Vikram Kashyap was the joint managing director in the company. Therefore, they were prima facie in control of affairs of the company...The state of mind of the directors of the company is actually the state of mind of the company,” the judge said.

“Since the evasion of PF by manipulating the records runs into crores, which cannot be without the knowledge or consent of the directors of this company, the CBI giving clean chit to them does not find favour with me. To impute and attribute liability of such criminal offence to a salaried employee of the company will not only be wrong but will also send a wrong signal to all the wrongdoers that even if rich and mighty commit an offence, when time for facing trial arises, they can conveniently shift their responsibility to a paid salaried employee,” the judge said.