Subsidized kerosene oil scam
Excelsior Correspondent
Jammu, Sept 7: In the much publicized subsidized kerosene oil scam, Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu YP Bourney has directed Crime Branch Jammu to reframe the charge sheet with special reference to the time period and the material against the individual accused persons. Moreover, Crime Branch has been asked to accord consideration to the material on record vis-a-vis the other persons who have not been arrayed as accused in the charge sheet.
“There are allegations of issuance of a large number of retail dealer licenses during the period from 1997-98 to 2006-07 thereby raising number of such retail outlets from 300 to 1111 by the year 2006. However, the Directors responsible for the issuance of those licenses have not been identified and the only Director CAPD arrayed as accused in the charge-sheet namely Subhash Chander Jandial attained superannuation in March 2002”, the court observed.
“Further, the licenses were issued in bulk on mere asking of the applicants whosoever applied in total disregard to the norms and guidelines issued by the Government from time to time and without following any procedure and verifying whether there was any need actually for the opening of a new/additional outlet in a particular locality. Moreover, the particulars of households to be served by a particular retail outlet were not specified leaving it open to all the retailers of the area to claim the quota of kerosene oil of individual households multiple times and consequent pilferage of the same”, the court further observed.
Court said, “there are allegations that 110 retail outlets were found non-existent but the monthly quota of the kerosene was released in their name. The area inspectors responsible for not reporting about those non-existent outlets have also not been clearly identified”.
“The wholesale dealers responsible for supplying the quota of kerosene to the retailers including even those retail outlets which were non-functional/non-existent have also been let off conveniently without any reason”, the court said, adding “the individual liabilities of accused persons viz a viz the material on record against them as collected during the course of investigation have also not been clearly spelt out”.
One of the accused persons namely Tinder Paul Singh has been in-service at the time and charge-sheet was presented though he was retired compulsorily from service by order of the Government but that order was quashed by the High Court and he had rejoined the service much earlier to the presentation of the charge-sheet. But there is no order from the competent authority sanctioning his prosecution, the court said.
“Lastly, these misappropriations of the kerosene oil have taken place over a long period of time (about a decade) and as per the provisions of Section 222 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, while charging the accused with misappropriation of movable property, the court has to specify the gross sum/describe the movable property and the dates between which the offence is alleged to have been committed and the time included between the last and the first dates should not exceed one year”, Special Judge said, adding “it was incumbent upon investigating agency to bifurcate the challan and file separate charge-sheets for all distinct blocks of the time not exceeding one year”.
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