Delhi High Court rejects Bail to Delhi CX Commissioner
AS you will remember, AK Srivastava, (former) Delhi Central Excise Commissioner and his Superintendent Lallan Ojha are in jail for the last three months in the 60 lakh bribe case. The accused officers were denied bail by the Delhi High Court on 11 April 2012. The charges as noticed by the High Court are:
Hemant Gandhi was acting as a middleman for accused Dr. A.K. Srivastava and Lallan Ojha, who were respectively posted as Commissioner and Superintendent of Central Excise at the relevant time. The allegations are that they were involved in obtaining illegal gratification by corrupt and illegal means from the businessmen. Further, the allegations are that they had conspired to conduct an unauthorized raid at the business premises of Dalip Aggarwal and Anand Aggarwal. It was alleged that in furtherance of the conspiracy, accused Hemant Gandhi had shown the premises of Aggarwals to Lallan Ojha on the evening of 27.12.2011 and it was decided to conduct a raid on the morning of 28.12.2011. In the process a team of officials of Central Excise led by accused Lallan Ojha conducted surprise raid at the godown premises of Dalip Aggarwal and Anand Aggarwal on 28.12.2011 under the overall supervision and control of accused Srivastava. Then they negotiated with Aggarwals for an illegal gratification for not taking any action and made an initial demand of Rs. 2 crore which was ultimately finalized at Rs. 60 lac. A sum of Rs. 40 lac was received in cash and a cheque of Rs. 20 lac was issued by Aggarwals as security for the remaining amount of bribe. Out of the said amount, a sum of Rs. 3 lac was paid to Ojha as his share and the said amount was given on 2.1.2012 to his driver who kept the same in the dickey of the car parked at his office at ITO. Accused Lallan Ojha was apprehended and got recovered Rs. 2,96,500/- from the dickey of his car. His driver confirmed that this money was delivered to him by an unknown person at the instance of Ojha.
The Delhi High Court observed,
If the accusation of bribery was supported by direct evidence of acceptance of illegal gratification including trap cases, it is obvious that no other factor is relevant and the level and status of officer is irrelevant. It is for this reason that the cases of bribery including the trap cases are outside the scope and ambit of Section 6A (1). The petitioners A.K. Srivastava and Lallan Ojha are senior officers of the Central Excise Department. Most of the witnesses who have been cited by the prosecution are officials of their department and some of the officials cited as witnesses are their juniors and subordinates. The pleas that the petitioners are in custody for about three months now and the charge-sheet has been filed are also no ground to admit them on bail.
The Commissioner will spend some more time in the company of his Superintendent - in jail.
(See full text of the Judgement - )