Judge bribery case: Defence not allowed to argue case

“You have no right to argue the case before any cognizance has been taken,” said the court. The Special CBI Judge then asked Gupta to explain the ingredients of the offences under Sections 11 and 12 of the Prevention of the Corruption Act against the accused.

It has earlier been argued by Gupta that the sanction was required by the CBI to prosecute Justice Nirmal Yadav under Section 11 of the PC Act whereas it was not required in the case of other accused under Section 12 of the PC Act (private person abetting the offence by a public servant). The court then adjourned the hearing of the case to March 20.

The closure report in the case was submitted in December last year when the CBI had said that they were closing the case for want of prosecution sanction.

However,it was found in the court that the CBI had never applied for prosecution sanction from the Chief Justice of India and the proper channel was not followed.

The court is currently hearing arguments on the merits of the report. The Punjab and Haryana Bar Association had filed a protest petition in the CBI court against the closure report.

The case had rocked the Punjab and Haryana High Court after Rs 15 lakh was “wrongly delivered” at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur on August 13,2008,following which she reported the matter to the police. The police later arrested the (then) Haryana additional advocate general Sanjeev Bansal,property dealer Rajiv Gupta and Delhi-based hotelier Ravinder Singh in this connection.

Two Jalandhar residents get 10 yrs in jail under NDPS Act
Two persons were sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment in a case of drug peddling on Saturday. The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Raj Shekhar Atri awarded the punishment to Paramjit Singh and Harpreet Singh under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. They have also been slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh each. The accused were reportedly arrested with two-kilogram heroin in 2007 by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). Another co-accused Sukhwinder Singh is on the run since then and has been declared a proclaimed offender in the case. The NCB had nabbed the two Jalandhar residents from the Sector-43 ISBT while they were carrying the contraband of drugs worth Rs 2 crore in the international market. The convicts,27-year-old Paramjit and 25-year-old Harpreet had come in a bus from Jalandhar and were waiting to deliver the drugs when they were caught. The NCB had claimed that the booty was to be delivered to a Nigerian national. During investigation,the accused had told officers that Sukhwinder alias Sukha from Jalandhar had given them the two packets of heroin.