Vasanti Dubey vs State Of M.P

5. But before we proceed to deal with the question involved herein, it is essential to state the salient facts and circumstances of this matter which has reached upto this Court by way of this special leave petition. On perusal of the materials on record, it emerges that the appellant - Smt. Vasanti Dubey was posted as the Block Development Officer, Janpad Panchayat, Gotegon, Narsinghpur (M.P.) and in that capacity was competent to award a contract for constructing concrete road in the village Baroda. The contract was awarded to one Dinesh Kumar Patel who was the Sarpanch of village Baroda for constructing the concrete road in the village and was initially paid a sum of Rs.15,000/- vide cheque No. 101626 dated 27.2.2001 for execution of the contract. He was further paid a sum of Rs.15,000/- vide cheque No.101629 dated 8.5.2001 for execution of the contract which was awarded to him. The awardee Sarpanch - Dinesh Kumar Patel was still further paid Rs.10,000/- vide cheque No.101635 dated 23.5.2001 and the balance payment of Rs. 10,000/-

mentioned payments were made to the Sarpanch contractor -

Dinesh Kumar Patel which were due to be paid to him and the cheques were duly encashed.

6. However, the Sarpanch/contractor after several days of receipt of the final payment, filed a complaint against the appellant/BDO - Smt. Vasanti Dubey in the Special Police Establishment, Lokayukta Office, Jabalpur stating inter-alia that the complainant - Dinesh Kumar Patel had been paid a sum of Rs.40,000/- only with respect to the contract awarded to him and when the balance payment of Rs.10,000/- was demanded by him, the appellant demanded a sum of Rs.3,000/- as commission. The complainant's further case is that he although paid a sum of Rs.500/-, he felt aggrieved and hence did not pay any further amount to the appellant but preferred to lodge a complaint on 7.8.2001 in regard to the illegal demand made by her. Since the alleged incident was falling within the jurisdiction of the Special Police Establishment, Lokayukta Office, Bhopal, a case was 4 registered against the appellant on the basis of the complaint on the same date i.e. 7.8.2001 under Sections 7 and 13(1)(d) read with Section 13(1)(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

7. The Special Police Establishment, Lokayukta Office, proceeded to investigate the matter and carried out detailed investigation and also recorded statements of various persons including that of the complainant on 26.3.2002. In course of investigation, the complainant resiled from his earlier version and stated that he had made a false complaint at the instance of someone else whose name he did not divulge. Further statement of one Shankar Singh was also recorded that the complainant had paid Rs.2,500/- to the appellant when she had gone to the bathroom and the money thereafter was recovered from her. The police also seized various documents from the office of the BDO located in the office of Janpad Gotegaon which included the files containing the details of the cheques from which payment had been made to the complainant. After completion of the investigation by the Office of Lokayukta who was competent to get the matter investigated by the police and in view of the statement of the 5 complainant that he made false complaint at the instance of someone else as also on account of the fact that the entire payment except Rs. 10,000/- had been made by the appellant

- Smt. Vasanti Dubey to the complainant prior to the date on which the complaint was filed, it was inferred that the complaint did not disclose commission of any offence and hence the Lokayukta directed that a closure report be filed in regard to the complaint lodged against Vasanti Dubey and appropriate action be initiated against the complainant for lodging a false complaint.

10. The Special Police Establishment, Lokayukta Office, Jabalpur, thereafter again got the complaint examined in the light of the statement of the witnesses and the evidence and noticed that there were no materials against the appellant to proceed as she had made all payments from 27.2.2001 up to 8 2.8.2001 yet a complaint dated 7.8.2001 was subsequently filed by the complainant - Dinesh Kumar Patel alleging that the appellant had demanded commission/bribe of Rs.2,500/-

from the complainant in order to clear his bills which complaint was found to be untrustworthy and hence unacceptable since all payments had already been received by the complainant prior to the lodgement of complaint specially in view of the subsequent version of the complainant that he had lodged a malicious complaint at the instance of a rival of the appellant.

At this stage, if the Special Judge found that there were sufficient ground to proceed, it could have taken cognizance 10 but having been confronted with the legal impediment that it could not proceed without sanction for prosecution, the Special Judge directed to reinvestigate the matter once again for the second time and also directed the investigating agency to obtain sanction for prosecution.

12. Hence, the appellant assailed the order of the Special Judge dated 18.5.2004 by filing a criminal revision petition No. 839/2004 but the High Court on this occasion dismissed the revision petition and was pleased to hold that the order of the Special Judge who had refused to accept the closure report for the second time did not suffer from any apparent error of jurisdiction. The learned single Judge while dismissing the revision petition observed that it shall still be open to the appellant to raise all such pleas as are available to her under the law in case charge-sheet is filed against her.