‘Immature & imprudent that sitting judge of HC will get gratification for matter decided 5 months before’

The CBI court had acquitted former HC judge Justice Nirmal Yadav, who has since retired, and three others — Ravinder Bhasin (hotelier), Rajeev Gupta and Nirmal Singh — in the ‘cash-at-judge’s door’ case dating back to 2008. While five people were accused in the case, one — Sanjiv Bansal — has since died.

The CBI judge, Alka Malik, has noted that it is the case of the CBI that the entire amount was mistakenly carried to the residence of the judge (Nirmaljit Kaur), although the delivery was to be made at the residence of Justice Nirmal Yadav, then a sitting Judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court, as illegal gratification in Regular Second Appeal (RSA) of 2007, decided by her and the entire emphasis of the CBI is on the statement of R K Jain (prosecution witness) serving as Additional District Judge in Haryana.

The court said that “he (R K Jain) is a witness who is absolutely unworthy of trust. The witness has mentioned during the course of his examination that he had made a statement before CBI probably in the month of September 2008, wherein he had omitted all the relevant facts, which he had stated before the Investigating Officer during his supplementary statement made by him in the year 2010…he did not mention about his doubts that the RSA was decided against him for illegal gratification received by the presiding judge. He made a very feeble attempt to explain the grave anomaly by urging that he learnt from the Gokhle Committee report that a sum of Rs 15 lakh was delivered to accused-5 (Justice Nirmal Yadav) by A-2 (Ravinder Bhasin) through A-1 (Sanjiv Bansal, since deceased-accused), whereafter, he connected the dots and came to believe that the amount was in fact an illegal gratification in the RSA decided against him…The Gokhle Committee report was never placed before this court nor it would have any bearing on the decision of this case. The contentions of PW26 (RK Jain) that he kept mum under pressure from A-5 (Justice Nirmal Yadav), a Judge of the High Court, fails to inspire confidence since he failed to elaborate upon the type of pressure which was brought upon him. No action of any type was ever initiated by any agency of the High Court against him during the intervening period. He was not transferred out mid-term during that period…The entire statement of PW26 is a clear improvement on the first statement made by him during the investigation of this case.”

“This court has no hesitation in observing that the CBI picked up a person who was highly aggrieved by a court decision made against his interest by Accused-5 (Justice Nirmal Yadav) and used his services to weave a case against Accused-5. After all, who will buy the story of the CBI that a sum of Rs.15 lakh was paid as illegal gratification to a Judge for a decision pronounced by her more than five months ago and that too on the basis of the statement by a very interested witness, who had made no such charge during the recording of his first statement by the CBI, but who created the charge during the supplementary statement recorded after two years”, added the CBI Judge, Alka Malik.

The CBI Judge further stated that the supplementary statement of RK Jain was recorded by CBI after its first investigation had found all the accused in this case innocent and had submitted the closure report before the court on December 19, 2009.

“A perusal of the judicial record would show that CBI relied upon no new evidence during re-investigation of this case, but for recording a totally new and highly improved version of PW26 (RK Jain). Let it be stated at the cost of repetition that the evidence of PW26 is a bundle of improvements made by him on his previous version and his statement is absolutely unworthy of trust and credence. This court has no hesitation in rejecting the testimony of this highly interested and motivated witness”, said the CBI Judge in the judgement.

The Court thus said that “it will be absolutely immature and imprudent on the part of even a layman to accept the contention that a sitting Judge of the High Court will receive financial illegal gratification/undue advantage in a matter which was decided five months prior to the alleged financial transaction much less a legal mind, which has been trained to separate the grain from the chaff and fish out the truth in the matter.”

The Court added that the “bulk of the so called evidence led in this case by the prosecution is hypothetical and assumptious in nature and deserves to be ignored.”

Further on the prosecution (CBI) relying on statement of accused Sanjiv Bansal (since deceased) while terming it as a confessional statement, the CBI Court said that “a statement can be taken as confessional statement only when it implicates the maker thereof. A careful perusal of this statement would show that it is not at all an inculpatory statement. Further, to consider a statement as confession, it must be voluntary. There is no evidence on record to prove that it was a voluntary statement as the maker thereof has died.”

The court added that there is no legal evidence available on record to hold that Justice Nirmal Yadav had actually received a sum of Rs.15 lakh in cash from Ravinder Bhasin on August 14, 2008, and the charge to that effect must fail.

The court said that it would have been appreciable on the part of a premier investigating agency of the stature of the Central Bureau of Investigation to stick to its very first stance of filing the closure report in the matter in the court of competent jurisdiction, rather than fabricating a highly unworthy of trust evidence in the form of R K Jain (PW26), whose testimony has been proved to be based upon all improvements, assumptions, presumptions, hypothesis and all falsehood.