Delhi: Be careful while roping in public servants, court to CBI in postal department cheating case

“CBI is, therefore, advised to be careful in roping in public servants who are routinely performing their duties and has no means to discover that his innocent performance of his official duty as per rule would make him part of any criminal conspiracy which might have been hatched behind him without his knowledge, consent, acquiescence and willingness,” the court said.

The court also said that “sanctioning authorities should have also been careful before according sanction for prosecution.”

“Before sending up for trial, endeavor must be made to find out if the public servant has ditched the department he works for or he has himself been ditched/deceived/tricked by other public servants or private persons,” the court said.

As per the case of the prosecution, the accused Dinesh Sharma, who was the proprietor of M/s Abhishek Enterprises, was in the mailing business. He had obtained a franking license which was cancelled and his franking machine was lying unused. He got a contract from M/s Escort Ltd. to dispatch its annual reports to shareholders.

The accused persons which include postal employees cheated by the postal department by mailing the bulk dak of M/s Escort Ltd., Faridabad by preparing a counterfeit franking die to dispatch the Annual Reports, from the Ghaziabad Post Office.

“They further obtained 16 demand drafts from M/s Escort Ltd. by submitting forged letters and encashed the said demand drafts in violation of rules of the postal department,” the CBI said.

The court acquitted the accused persons Dinesh Sharma, Yogender Kumar Sharma, Rajiv Kumar Srivastava and Umesh Kumar Singh, Inderpal Singh Yadav, Om Prakash Sharma under offences of criminal conspiracy and various other IPC sections and Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988.

The court acquitted accused Mahender Kumar and Tariq Mohamad under sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) and 406 (Punishment for criminal breach of trust) of the IPC and PC Act. They were held guilty of conspiracy to use counterfeit government stamps, possessing counterfeiting government stamps, using forged documents and cheating.

The accused Gajender Kumar Sharma was held guilty under the same sections, however, was acquitted for conspiracy to commit criminal breach of trust and PC Act. Two other accused died during the trial.