Court No. - 81
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 56637 of 2019 Applicant :- Rajeev Sharma Opposite Party :- State of U.P.
Counsel for Applicant :- Bhupendra Pal Singh Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Dinesh Kumar Singh-I,J.
Heard Bhupendra Pal Singh, learned counsel for the applicant and Sri G. P. Singh, learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the record.
This application under Section 438 Cr.P.C. has been moved seeking anticipatory bail in Case Crime No. 299 of 2019, under Sections 7, 13(1)B, 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act, Police Station Banna Devi, District Aligarh.
As per the F.I.R. the prosecution case is that a complaint was made against the applicant by one Gaurav Sharma S/o Vinod Kumar Sharma of Aligarh in respect of the unknown property beyond his known sources of income, pursuant to which an enquiry was held into this matter and in the check period beginning from 01.01.2005 to 31.07.2014 the income from all known sources of the accused was found to be Rs. 12,18,880/- and during the same period he was found to have purchased properties and made expenditure of Rs. 33,79,698/- therefore, a huge amount was found to have been earned disproportionate to his all known sources of income, regarding which the accused could not give satisfactory reply. Further it was also found in the inquiry that the accused Lekhpal, Rajiv Sharma had demanded Rs. 7,00,000/- from one Sri Shakil Pradhan, Talaspur Khurd, Tehsil Kol, District Aligarh in lieu of executing Patta in favour of poor people of the village out of which the said Pradhan had given 4.80 lakhs in room of a hotel which was booked in the name of his friend Ravi Thakur by taking Rs. 1,00,000/- from Udai Singh, Rs. 2,00,000/- from Md. Aslam and Rs. 1.80 lakhs from his own resources and thereafter after sometime, the applicant further demanded the remaining amount of Rs. 2.20 lakhs which was later on credited in the account of the applicant. These facts have been substantiated by Shakil Pradhan and his friend H. S. Jagdish and Ravi and also the hotel manager Sonpal Srivastava.
The arguments made by learned counsel for the applicant is that he has been falsely implicated. The real facts are that house No. 5/259 belonged to his mother. His father was working as Food Quality Inspector in F.C.I. and had purchased a house in the name of his wife Smt. Uma Sharma(mother of the applicant) and the said house is still in the name of his mother, its house tax, water tax, electricity connection were also issued by concerned authorities in the name of his mother. His father Kanhaiya lal was havig ancestral property being Khata No. 00094, Gata No. 110/1 area 0.047 hectare, and Khata No. 00370 Gata no. 110/3 area 0.0200 hectare and Khata No. 00093 Gata 340/4 area 0.8720 situated in village Gomath, Tehsil Khair, District Aligarh. His father had executed a Power of Attorney in favour of his elder brother Brijesh Sharma in which applicant was a witness. The father of the applicant died on 30.07.2008, leaving behind his wife and two sons i.e. Brijesh and the applicant as heirs. His father's agricultural land was sold by his brother on the basis of the power of attorney on different dates which have been mentioned in para 20 of the affidavit. Further, it is submitted that the total land of the applicant's father was approximately worth Rs. 40,00,000/- only so the applicant's brother and mother had given him Rs. 1,33,300/- as a share during the period of 29.10.2005 to 26.06.2007. Further, it is submitted that the applicant's wife was suffering from serious ailments which was Choriocarcinoma with liver metastasis to intestine, lever and bone and it was diagnosed in the year 2011 and to meet out the expenses of treatment of his wife, the applicant has taken a loan of Rs. 2,20,000/- from a friend H. S. Jagdish on 27.02.2017 which was returned through R.T.G.S. on 14.01.2019 in the same account, copy of medical records as well as R.T.G.S. receipt have been filed as annexure no. 11. Further, it is submitted that H. S. Jagdish and Shakeel Pradhan had given their affidavit before D.M.Aligarh on 20.09.2019 stating therein that the said transaction of Rs. 2,20,000/- had taken place between the parties of their free consent. The applicant was ready to give all explanation of his whole properties without his being taken into custody. The applicant has less property in comparison to his income and due to the expenses in the treatment of his wife, the applicant's mother's jewellery was sold for sum of Rs. 5,00,000/- in the year 2011 and the applicant had also taken personal loan of Rs.
7,00,000/- on 15.03.2019 and 30.08.2019 from H.D.F.C. Bank.
The applicant had also withdrawn a sum of Rs. 8,00,000/- from his G.P.F. account on 02.12.2014 and 11.05.2017 for personal expenditure and for treatment of his wife. Father in law of the applicant had also given financial help to the applicant of Rs. 2,50,000/- on 06.04.2019 by bank draft issued by P.N.B. Branch Khurja for the treatment of applicant's wife. Therefore, it is crystal clear that the applicant had no additional property movable or immovable beyond his known sources of income. Some persons of the applicant's department who were having hostility were behind this complaint particularly Dr. Gaurav Sharma was inimical towards him because the applicant was a member of the revenue team (authorized by the Tehsildar Kol) which had demarcated the property of the farmers of the village Alahadapur Nivri and the land of the complainant's father was also situated in the said village. The applicant had rejected the offer of the complainant for increasing the demarcation of the land. Due to the said reason he had threatened the applicant that he would implicate him in false cases and destroy his reputation. As regards the allegations of Rs. 7,00,000/- having been taken by the applicant from Mohd. Shakeel and H. S. Jagdish, they have already given their affidavits in regard to that, which are annexed at pages 213 and 214 of the paper book, in which it has been mentioned by them that the said transaction was done at social level with consent and that they were not aware of any complaint made against the applicant. With these averments it is argued that the applicant is totally innocent, he needs to be granted relief of anticipatory bail.
On the other hand, learned A.G.A. has vehemently opposed the prayer for granting anticipatory bail stating that the sale deeds which have been annexed by the applicant at page 45 onwards of the land belonging to his father relate to the year prior to the check period hence, that income cannot be taken into consideration. Whatever arguments have been made by the learned counsel for the applicant are not sufficient to explain away the entire amount which is found to be beyond his declared income from his all known sources of income.
I have gone through the F.I.R. and find that in the check period shown in the F.I.R. there is huge gap in the income and expenditure as the applicant's income from all known sources is Rs. 12,18,880/- and the expenditure is found to be Rs.
33,79,698/-. It has been tried to be explained by the learned counsel for the applicant that the huge amount of income which ought to have been taken into consideration by the prosecution side, which have come to the share of the applicant has not been taken into consideration because of which this huge gap has been left. It does not appear possible at this stage to take into consideration all the detail of his incomes which are shown by the learned counsel for the applicant as not having being taking into consideration as the same would require thorough investigation but looking to the fact that there is huge gap and the applicant was just a lekhpal, hence, such huge amount which he has not been able to explain raises serious doubt about his being involved in corrupt practices.
I do not find it to be an appropriate case to allow anticipatory bail in order to give protection to the accused as he may tamper with the evidence and though he has taken plea of false implication due to enmity but that does not appear to be any serious kind of enmity between the complainant and him which would lead him to falsely implicate the accused applicant. This application for anticipatory bail deserves to be dismissed and is accordingly dismissed.
Furthermore, it is clarified that the observations, if any, made herein above shall be strictly confined to the disposal of the bail application and must not be construed to have any reflection on the ultimate merits of the case.
Order Date :- 18.12.2019 VPS