STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu Sanjay Dhar on Tuesday acquitted Subash Raina then Accounts Assistant Additional Treasury New Plots Jammu who was caught red-handed by the Vigilance Organisation Jammu (VOJ) while he was accepting Rs. 2000 as illegal gratification from the complainant for releasing family pension in favour of her mother, as VOJ failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
According to case, on 22nd April, 2009, complainant Radha Rani lodged a written complaint with Police Station VOJ alleging therein that she has approached accused Subash Chander Raina, Accounts Assistant Additional Treasury Office Jammu on a number occasions for release of family pension in favour of her mother Usha Rani but the said Accounts Assistant is delaying the matter on one pretext or the other. It was further alleged in the complaint that accused Subash Chander Raina is demanding a bribe of Rs. 2000 from the complainant for releasing the family pension in favour of her mother. The complainant, instead of paying the bribe amount to accused, approached Vigilance Organization Jammu and lodged the report. Upon this complaint, FIR No. 09/2009 for offences under Section 5(1)(d) read with S. 5(2) P.C. Act & S. 161 RPC was registered and investigation of the case was handed over to Inspector Tahir Hussain. A trap team was constituted and on 22nd April 2009 a trap, against the accused, was laid. During the trap proceedings, it came to the fore that accused, who was posted as Accounts Assistant with Additional Treasury New Plots Jammu, demanded an amount of Rs. 2000 as illegal gratification from the complainant for releasing family pension in favour of her mother. The complainant accordingly handed over the bribe amount of Rs. 2000 to the accused, who after accepting it, kept the same in the register lying in the nearby steel rack which was in his official use and from there the bribe amount was recovered by one of the members of trap team.
Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu Sanjay Dhar after hearing Advocate S.C Bali appearing for the alleged accused observed that to sum up, from the material on record, it becomes clear that the very genesis of this case is based upon personal grudge and enmity between complainant and accused. As has been already noted, a number of criminal complaints have been lodged against accused prior to lodging of the report which resulted in present charge sheet. It has been stated by Surinder Sharma, Sanjay Nagpal and Ravi Kant Sharma who were members of the trap team, that accused, immediately after the trap, shouted that complainant had taken revenge upon him for her old enmity by falsely implicating him. Thus the conduct of the accused immediately after the trap proceedings, supports his defence that genesis of the complaint was personal enmity between him and the complainant. If the TLO and the independent witnesses would have questioned the complainant properly on this aspect of the case, they would have definitely come to know that her long standing enmity with accused had prompted her to lodge the complaint against the accused. It appears that neither TLO nor the independent witnesses have taken trouble to do so and this has resulted in an illegal trap. With these observations Court acquitted the accused from the charges leveled against him. JNF
