Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Dec 3: Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu YP Bourney has acquitted Krishan Kumar Arora, the then Superintending Engineer PWD (R&B) Jammu-Kathua Circle (now retired as CE), Purshotam Kumar Samnotra, the then Executive Engineer, PWD (R&B) Tawi Bridge-cum-Medical College Division Jammu (now retired), Sat Pal Pandoh, the then Executive Engineer PWD (R&B) Construction Division-II (now retired) Jammu and Rajinder Mahajan, Prop of M/s Deen Trading Corporation as prosecution failed to prove that purchases made by them were at exorbitant rates and there was any loss to the exchequer.
“Mere non adherence to the conventional procedure by making purchases without calling tenders doesn’t by itself gives rise to the inference that these were made with the requisite criminal intention rather there is no proof of criminal intention since the purchases have not been shown to be made at exorbitant rates”, the court said.
The evidence on record establishes that there was urgency on account of abrupt fixation of date of inauguration and there was hardly a month’s time left with the executing agency to complete the pending works of the project and hence there was no choice but to negotiate with the supplier who had already made an offer and had already made supplies of the same product with satisfactory performance results, the court observed.
Special Judge Anticorruption further observed, “it needs to be pointed out with dismay that instant case has failed mainly on account of absence of a clear line of investigation. It needs no reiteration that a clear line of action is to be drawn at the very outset keeping in view what is to be proved and what is not disputed”.
This charge-sheet owes its origin to a joint surprise check by a team of Vigilance into the allegations of bungling in the purchases of cat eye studs of ‘ZAZU’ make made by the officers of PWD (R&B) Jammu of Tawi Bridge and Medical College Division in the year 2004.
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