Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 23: Additional Sessions Judge Anticorruption Jammu Ritesh Dubey today awarded 8 years imprisonment and fine of Rs 1 lakh to Rajinder Singh in cheating and forgery case and acquitted Tarseem Lal, Subash Chander Chopra, the then Chief Manager SFC, Sudershan Kumar Bali, the then Assistant Manager Transport SFC and Mool Raj Sharma, the then Senior Assistant SFC Jammu.
After hearing both the sides, the Additional Sessions Judge observed, “with respect to the charge against the accused official of SFC, I have kept into consideration that a line has to be drawn between a negligent performance of official banking business and criminal misconduct”, adding “it cannot be forgotten that the banking business involves such loans in their every day functioning. But to attract the criminal consequence, some overt acts or omissions which are of unimpeachable character need to be established”.
“The material and evidence tendered by the prosecution is not of such a character as may point to one and only one hypothesis which is the guilt of the accused SFC officials”, the court said, adding “at the same time, the evidence tendered by the prosecution points to one and one hypothesis of guilt of accused Rajinder Kumar alias Shinda and the prosecution has succeeded in proving the charge for offences under Sections 420/467/468/471 against the accused Rajinder Singh”.
Stating that prosecution has not strengthened its chain of events so strongly by the evidence led by it as has not been weakened by any reasonable doubt, the court said, “since the offences are not established against the accused except Rajinder Singh, the offence of criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B RPC is held not established against him”.
Accordingly, court convicted Rajinder Singh for offences under Sections 420/467/ 468/471. He shall undergo simple imprisonment of three years each for the commission of offences under Sections 420/468 RPC. He shall also suffer simple imprisonment for a term of five years each for offences under Sections 467/471 RPC. All the sentences of imprisonment shall run concurrently, the court ordered.
“The accused shall also pay a cumulative fine of Rupees one lakh for all the offences committed by him failing which he shall suffer a further simple imprisonment for a period of one year which shall be in addition to his substantive sentence of imprisonment”, the court added.
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