Can bribe be recovered 7 years after incident? Delhi Court finds 'no force' in argument, grants bail to PWD official [READ ORDER]

When a question of whether money could be recovered seven years after a government official had purportedly accepted the bribe cropped up, a Delhi court recently found “no force” in the prosecution's stance and granted bail to the accused official. [State v. Rajender Datt Vashishta].A Public Works Department (PWD) official was accused of demanding and accepting a bribe in February 2014, in exchange for clearing the bills of a contractor..Special Judge (Anti-Corruption Bureau) Dig Vinay Singh noted that more than seven years had passed since the FIR was registered, and, therefore, there was no force in the contention of investigating agency that the bribe amount or any document was left to be recovered..“As mentioned above, more than seven years have passed since registration of FIR, therefore, there is no force in the contention of investigating agency that the bribe amount is to be recovered or any other document is to be recovered. The documents are primarily available in the PWD files which must have been collected by now. It is nobody's case that any document pertaining to the bills in question of Sunil Chaudhary are missing from the PWD file. No such claim is made in reply by the IO,” the court said. .Case details showed that Rajender Datt Vashishta was working as Junior Engineer (Electrical) in PWD in Maharishi Valmiki Hospital, Bawana Road, Delhi. He is alleged to have demanded and accepted ₹24,000 from a contractor, Sunil Chaudhary for clearing his bills..Chaudhary reportedly carried out a “sting operation” on February 26, 2014 and again on March 1, 2014 that was stated to have been aired on a news channel on March 22, 2014..After the sting was aired, it is stated that the Chief Engineer of the PWD of the zone concerned filed a complaint following which the ACB, Delhi Police, registered an FIR on March 24, 2014. Separate FIRs alleging separate offences were registered as the sting operation involved different public servants and different transactions..Seeking bail for his client, advocate Dhruv Gupta contended that the video in question showed neither a bribe demand nor any acceptance of the alleged bribe money by Vashishta..He argued that as a result Sections 7 and 13 of Prevention of Corruption Act would not be applicable as demand was sine qua non for the applicability of these legal provisions..Gupta pointed out that it was absurd to think that after seven years of the alleged crime, the bribe amount could be recovered. He also negated any reasonable apprehension of tampering with the evidence as the same was documentary in nature and available in the files of the department. If at all, the accused was interested in tampering, he would have done it by now, it was argued..The lawyer stressed that, admittedly, the investigating agency had registered separate FIRs against other accused persons with similar allegations and in those cases chargesheets were filed without arrests..Had there been any reasonable and serious apprehension of tampering with the evidence, the investigating agency would not have waited for seven long years after registration of FIR.Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh.Chief Prosecutor for the State Maqsood Ahmed opposed bail application on the ground that offense committed were serious in nature and that the accused had not cooperated in the investigation, besides raising the contention that he could tamper with the evidence..It also came on Court’s record that, admittedly, the IO had sent only two notices to the accused April 16, 2021 and July 8, 2021, respectively, against which the accused appeared before the agency on July 19, 2021..“In neither of the two notices sent by the IO to the accused, it is mentioned that anything is to be recovered from the accused, more particularly, the bribe amount or any other document,” the court observed..The court was of the opinion that, even otherwise, as per the investigating agency’s case, Chaudhary had submitted his bills for clearance in the PWD office for which the alleged bribe was demanded..The order, therefore, stated, “Those documents relevant to the bills can be always collected from the office and must have been collected by now and there is no justification offered by the IO to state that those documents are with the accused and if so, which particular document was not found in the office file or is with the accused.”.“The evidence in this case is therefore primarily documentary available in PWD files, besides the alleged video footage. Had there been any reasonable and serious apprehension of tampering with the evidence, the investigating agency would not have waited for seven long years after registration of FIR. The accused is a government employee and therefore there is no reasonable apprehension that he would not be available for trial. No useful purpose would be served by keeping the accused in custody,” the court underscored. .[READ ORDER]