Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 6: After 23 years of investigation and trial, Special Judge Anticorruption Ritesh Kumar Dubey has acquitted Ajit Kumar, the then Additional Chief Secretary, Janak Singh, Financial Advisor/Chief Accounts Officer and Ghulam Rasool Vakil alias Lassa Vakil in the much publicized jute mat scam.
After hearing Senior Advocate MA Goni and Advocate DS Chouhan for Ajit Kumar, the court observed, “the prosecution has also failed in explaining why certain officers were picked and chosen for prosecution, and certain others left by believing them not guilty of any misconduct”.
“If the accused namely Ajit Kumar was guilty of misconduct in the State Level Purchase Committee, the other members were equally responsible for the collective decision in the meeting except A K Mehta who made his endorsement of the minutes of meeting subject to the observations recorded by him”, the court said, adding “though his observations were not by way of a clear refusal to put his signature yet those were preceded by his absence from the meeting. And his conduct at least shows that a guilty criminal intention could not be attributed to him”.
The court also considered the fact of recovery of a diary reflecting payments to Government officers, and initials ‘A’ and ‘A.K’ with allegation of payments also to the persons with said initials. “Again, the prosecution has not led any evidence in this regard. Noting that the diary is alleged to be of one of the accused, the prosecution could have led circumstantial evidence in this regard also”, the court said, adding “the possible evidence could also include the statement of Nazir Ahmed Mattoo”.
“Prosecution allegation in this regard is that the personal diary of A-3 mentions payment of Rs 3150 and Rs 3110 to A.K, besides mentioning the amount paid to different Government/ Private persons, A K was Ajit Kumar, and that the fact was also confirmed by Nazir Ahmed Mattoo private Secretary of A-1 who was given Rs 10,000 by A-3 around the same period for arranging of Air tickets of A-1”, the court said, adding “if there was some sort of confirmation possible by Nazir Ahmed Mattoo, the investigating agency cannot be held justified in withholding the deposition of witness knowing full well that the evidence of such facts is difficult to be found, and that the Nazir Ahmed was a crucial witness to establish a link between the illegal payments”.
The prosecution has tendered the circumstances of a phone call by Ajit Kumar allegedly for favours to Lassa Vakil, a deposit slip issued by Americian Bank/Citi Bank purportedly for deposit in the account of Ajit Kumar and his wife, recovery of a diary mentioning inter alia the initials ‘A’ and ‘A.K’, the grant of tender for supply of Birla Jute mat by ignoring the other six tenders without stipulating the same in the tender notice, and also the difference in the price quoted by A-3 and the sale price of Birla Corporation to him by alleging the same to be exorbitant, and the observations recorded by the witness A K Mehta. However, the evidence led by the prosecution is either deficient or no evidence at all. Prosecution has failed in proving most of the documentary evidence like photocopy rate list, issuance of deposit slip, photocopy tender agreement with respect to digging of tube wells, diary and entries therein, etc”.
“The prosecution has allowed the missing links to enter its chain of circumstances thereby either weakening or breaking the same. Also, if the accused were believed guilty by the prosecution, on the basis of purchase of jute mat in the present case, the leaving of others involved also becomes missing link in the prosecution chain of circumstances”, the court said, adding “the law is well settled that the prosecution must establish its case in such a manner that its chain of circumstances is not broken or weakened by any possible doubt, and that the same leads to one and only one hypothesis pointing to the guild of accused”.
With these observations, court acquitted the accused persons.
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