Holding that “a convenient method” was adopted for misappropriating the files which had disappeared from the Punjab Secretariat in March 2011, additional district and sessions judge S K Sachdeva convicted Yograj Sharma, the former Deputy Secretary in the personnel department, and sentenced him to seven-year imprisonment. The judge observed that “arguments of the public prosecutor carried substance” and so the accused was held guilty. Sharma was held guilty under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Sharma was also slapped with a fine of Rs 50,000. The case dates back to March 2011 when 35 files went missing from the secretariat and a case was registered in March 2013. These files pertained to the departmental inquiries of IAS and PCS officers. These included former officers: Patiala divisional-commissioner C S Srivastava, Ludhiana DC Sumer Singh Gurjar, Punjab Agro Managing Director Himmat Singh, Batala SDM Perneet, PCS officers Inderyush Bhatti and Jasdeep Singh Aulakh and some others. [related-post] During the inquiry, some of the files were found but a case was registered against Sharma. As per the judgment, Sharma had asked for the files which went missing while he was the chief vigilance officer and no one questioned why he asked for these files. “It is for the accused thereafter to account for those files, which he has been unable to,” observed the court. The court order reads, “Fourteen files, which as per the movement register maintained in the IAS branch office were sent to accused Yograj Sharma, who was then working as deputy secretary in the personnel department.. the files were not received back (to the office of the witness, Ajay Kumar, senior assistant who had sent the files).” Another witness who was questioned about the files by the inquiry officer said that “as chief vigilance officer, the accused, has demanded a list of all PCS/IAS officers against whom departmental inquiries were pending. Obviously when the accused was at such a commanding position, nobody could have dared to ask him for issuing the receipt in token of having received the files”. The public prosecutor informed the court that “at times, for doing discreet/secret injuries, such type of conduct has to be adopted”. “Entrustment of the files stood proved to have been made to the accused and same have been lost. It implies that the accused had misappropriated the same in order to benefit those officers against whom the complaints were made and undue advantage has been given,” reads the judgment.
