Corruption case: Delhi HC stays trial court proceedings against DCW chief Swati Maliwal

“Further proceedings are stayed till the next date of hearing before this court,” Justice Bhambhani said, issuing notice to the Delhi Police directing them to file a status report in six weeks and listed the matter on July 26.

Section 13(1)(d)(ii) of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act defines instances of criminal misconduct by public servant wherein the person obtains for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage. Special judge Dig Vinay Singh, in the December 8 order, had framed charges under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and multiple offences under the PC Act against Maliwal and DCW members Promila Gupta, Sarika Chaudhary and Farheen Malick.

The case was registered on the complaint of former MLA Barkha Singh Shukla, who made allegations of irregularities in the DCW during Maliwal’s tenure, The Indian Express had reported. The Anti-Corruption Branch investigated the case and filed a chargesheet against the four accused. The agency claimed that against 26 sanctioned posts, the accused appointed 87 persons in the DCW during the impugned tenure, out of whom most were acquaintances or party workers or associated with Maliwal and the AAP.

Appearing for Maliwal, senior advocate Rebecca John argued that the essence of the allegation is that Maliwal, in her position as chairperson between July 27, 2015 and August 2016, along with the co-accused, appointed 87 persons to various positions in and under the DCW which contributed to offences under the PC Act.

The chargesheet, John argued, places a table setting out the names and details of the appointees and their alleged connection with Maliwal. John said the dates of appointments show they were all “contractual appointments” duly approved by the finance department of the Delhi government and audit reports were placed before the Delhi Legislative Assembly. It was also argued that the membership register of the AAP had not been seized or placed before the special judge.

John drew the court’s attention to the statement of constable Arun Kumar, who is stated to have verified the association of the appointees to the AAP, and argued that the verification was based “entirely on hearsay and not based on any tangible material”.

During the course of the hearing Justice Bhambhani asked whether nepotism is an offence under the PC Act to which John said, “for criminal misconduct nepotism is not an offence, it must be accompanied with pecuniary advantage to me,” adding that there was no such allegation against Maliwal. She further said, “There are 50 lawyers appointed who monitor the court matters, if they are blocked they will get some remuneration”.

John also argued that the functioning of the DCW is governed by the DCW Act which has been set up as an autonomous body to address the intent and purpose of the legislation as evidenced by the order of March 1, 2016 of the Department of Women and Child Development, Delhi government. A specific clarification was issued to the effect that DCW has the autonomy to take financial decisions regarding the appointments without prior approval from the Delhi government, John said.

She further drew the court’s attention to various provisions of the DCW Act to show that the body is entitled to make appointments which includes lawyers who have been engaged on matters relating to women’s affairs.

The special judge had observed, “The above-mentioned facts create a strong suspicion that recruitments to various posts were made during impugned tenure of the accused for different remunerations in arbitrary manner, violating all rules and regulations in which the near and dear ones were appointed and remunerations were given to them from public exchequer”. On this, John argued that “no such rule/regulation, procedure has ever been cited much less placed on record” on which the order charge could have been passed.

“Assuming there are rules, there are enough laws which say that violation of a procedure will lead to a departmental enquiry, not criminal proceedings…funds were put back into the DCW and work was being done. I can understand if these people came and collected salaries and didn’t do a dot of work…that is not their case,” John said. She further pointed out that the complainant – the former chairperson of the body – belonged to a different political party and hence the complaint is malafide.