New Delhi, May 6 A Delhi court has ordered framing corruption and conspiracy charges against a former railway supplier in a 2014 case registered by the CBI, setting the stage for trial.
The court, however, discharged a former employee of the supplier firm, saying there was nothing to show that he was part of the conspiracy and suspicion, however grave, cannot take the place of proof.
The CBI had registered a case in 2014 against R K Bhalotia, the former managing director of M/s Ridhi Sidhi Udyog Ltd, a West Bengal-based firm which was a supplier of brake shoes, brake blocks and related equipment to the Indian Railways; Joginder Pal Kohli, account assistant, Northern Railways; and Shyam Sundar Basak, who was an employee of M/s Ridhi Sidhi Udyog Ltd.
According to the charge sheet, Bhalotia had bribed Kohli for the early disbursement of payments against the bills raised by the company.
It said that forensics had matched Basak's handwriting on the bank deposit slip by which a bribe amount had been deposited in Kohli's bank account.
In an order dated May 4, Special Judge Arun Sukhija framed charges against Bhalotia under the Prevention of Corruption Act provisions along with the penal provision for criminal conspiracy, to which he pleaded non-guilty and claimed trial.
While ordering framing charges on April 23, the court had noted that Kohli had expired during the trial and proceedings against him were abated.
Regarding Basak's role, the court had said that he was merely a clerk and bound to follow the employer's order for filling up the deposit slip, and filling the slip could not, by any stretch of imagination, lead to the inference that he was part of the conspiracy.
Earlier, Basak's lawyer, Nishaank Mattoo, had argued that the CBI had not placed on record even a shred of evidence to remotely show that his client knew about the money being the alleged bribe amount.
The court said that the investigating officer (IO) did not provide any other concrete material against Basak to show he had also conspired with his employer.
"Suspicion, however grave, cannot take the place of proof, and the prosecution cannot afford to rest its case in the realm of 'may be true' but has to upgrade it in the domain of 'must be true' in order to steer clear of any possible surmises or conjectures," the court had said while discharging him.
