2008 cash-at-judge's door case: CBI miserably failed to bring home guilt, says court

Chandigarh: A special CBI court has said the CBI "miserably failed to bring home the guilt" of the accused persons in the 2008 cash-at-judge's door case.

Special CBI judge Alka Malik said the probe agency should have stuck to its initial stand of closing the matter.

On March 29, the court acquitted four persons, including former Punjab and Haryana high court judge Nirmal Yadav, in connection with the case.

A packet containing Rs 15 lakh was allegedly wrongly delivered at the residence of another Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Nirmaljit Kaur on August 13, 2008.

It was alleged that the cash was meant for Justice Yadav as a bribe to influence a property deal.

The verdict, which was pronounced on March 29 and released on March 3, held, "Prosecution has miserably failed to bring home the guilt to the accused persons and consequently, accused namely Ravinder Bhasin, Rajeev Gupta, Nirmal Singh and Nirmal Yadav, are hereby acquitted of the charges framed against them..." All accused persons were charged for relevant offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, aside from IPC, which included the criminal conspiracy charge.

The acquittal order went on, "It would have been highly appreciable on the part of a premier investigating agency of the stature of the Central Bureau of Investigation to stick to its very first stance of filing the closure report in the matter in the court of competent jurisdiction, rather than fabricating a highly unworthy of trust evidence in the form of R K Jain whose testimony has been proved to be based upon all improvements, assumptions, presumptions, hypothesis and all falsehood." The verdict further held there was not "even a grain of evidence available on record" to establish a foolproof case against the accused.

"These loose ends have remained loose in this case and they, thus, tend to prove absolutely nothing," it added.

The order underlined the "total" absence of the "link evidence" in the case since bulk of the witnesses relied upon by the CBI refused to support the prosecution's version and were largely declared hostile.

The names of Sanjiv Bansal, former additional advocate general, Haryana, Delhi-based hotelier Ravinder Singh, city-based businessman Rajiv Gupta and another person had also surfaced in the case.

Bansal died of an illness in February, 2017.

The matter was reported to Chandigarh Police, which registered an FIR but the case was subsequently transferred to the CBI.

In December 2009, the central probe agency filed a closure report in the case but a CBI court rejected it in March 2010 and ordered a reinvestigation.

Following CBI's request for sanction to prosecute Justice Yadav, the then chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted it in November 2010.

The office of President of India approved the prosecution sanction in March 2011.

The CBI on March 4, 2011 filed a chargesheet against Justice Yadav, who was a judge in the Uttarakhand High Court, on the day of her retirement.

She was transferred from the Punjab and Haryana High Court in November, 2009.

On January 18, 2014, the special CBI court framed charges against Justice Yadav in the case after the Supreme Court dismissed her plea for stay on proceedings in the trial court.

During the trial, 69 of the 84 witnesses were examined by the prosecution.

The trial, spanning 17 years, witnessed several judges dealing with the case.