JOIN USThe Supreme Court has held that death of a public servant even before the commencement of trial in a corruption case would not lead to conclusion that the co-accused could not be tried for other offences before the special judge.
A bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Adarsh Kumar Goel dismissed the appeal filed by M/s HCL Infosystem Ltd and Dr Vijai Tripathi against the Allahabad High Court’s order, which had rejected their plea against their trial for offences under the Indian Penal Code before the special court.
The matter is related to the National Rural Health Mission scam, wherein Rs 9,000 crore funds allocated to Uttar Pradesh for the period 2005-2006 by the Union government were diverted and misappropriated on a large-scale. The scam was probed by the CBI on an order of the high court in 2011.
Notably, after the scam was unravelled, two chief medical officers were shot dead. One deputy CMO was found dead in jail. Sunil Verma, named as one of the accused, committed suicide. Mahender Kumar Sharma, a clerk in the office of CMO, was also found murdered.