New Delhi: It took a special CBI court in Chandigarh 300 hearings, spanning 15 years and presided over by 10 judges, to conclude that procedural lapses had been committed during investigation of the 2008 cash-at-judge’s-door case against retired judge Nirmal Yadav.
The court proceedings began on 6 April 2011—a month after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a chargesheet against five accused, including Justice Yadav—and culminated in a verdict on 29 March this year.
The trial court or special CBI court acquitted the former Punjab and Haryana judge and all accused in the case in which Rs 15 lakh cash was delivered to the residence of another judge of the same court in August 2008. The trial court also pointed to conflicting testimonies of key witnesses and a prosecution case built largely on circumstantial evidence, while delivering the verdict.
The saga began when the Chandigarh Police registered an FIR on 16 August 2008 on the complaint of a peon at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur. The peon had complained that a ‘munshi’ had come to the house with a plastic bag, saying the parcel had come from Delhi and was to be delivered.
According to court documents, Kaur (now retired) asked the peon to check the contents of the bag, and upon seeing the cash, asked him to call the police and get the ‘munshi’ apprehended.
The then Chief Justice of India K. G. Balakrishnan was informed, and he set up a three-judge probe committee which included Justice H.L. Gokhale, then chief justice of Allahabad High Court, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, then chief justice of Gujarat High Court, and Madan B. Lokur, then a Delhi HC judge.
The ‘munshi’ led the police to an officer of Sanjeev Bansal, then Haryana’s additional advocate general. It was found that the cash was allegedly meant for Justice Nirmal Yadav.
After examining the witnesses and documents, the inquiry committee concluded that the cash delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur was meant for Justice Nirmal Yadav.
The CBI took over the case the same month, and Justice Yadav was transferred to the High Court of Uttarakhand. She retired from service in March 2011. Bansal died in December 2016.
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Almost three years to frame charges
A chargesheet was filed on 4 March 2011, against Bansal, Nirmal Singh, Rajiv Gupta and Ravinder Singh Bhasin (all accused of orchestrating the bribe) under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 192 (fabricating false evidence), 193 (false evidence), 196 (using evidence known to be untrue), 199 (false statement) and 200 (using false material as true) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Justice Yadav was charged only under Section 11 of the anti-graft Act relating to a public servant obtaining undue advantage.
The Chandigarh court on 18 April that year took cognisance of the chargesheet.
However, it took 33 months and 56 hearings for the special CBI court to frame charges against the accused, which eventually happened on 18 January, 2014.
The court proceedings were adjourned on at least nine hearing dates at the instance of Justice Yadav, who filed applications citing petitions pending before higher courts challenging proceedings ranging from filing of chargesheet by the CBI to other trial court orders.
According to court documents, the case came to a standstill in the trial court as Justice Yadav informed it in April 2012 that her petition challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court order rejecting her plea seeking quashing of the chargesheet and prosecution sanction was due for hearing in the Supreme Court in July 2012.
Hence, the case should be adjourned until after its settlement in the apex court, it was argued. The trial court accepted the argument and adjourned.
In September that year, the judge once again argued that her special leave petition (SLP) challenging the HC order was pending in the SC, and that the case should be adjourned in the trial court to accommodate the hearing. The special CBI court again accepted this request despite opposition from the prosecution.
On the next hearing, the judge’s counsel argued for the need to incorporate specific grounds in the SLP and summon all records to the court. The special public prosecutor sought time to reply to these applications, and the case was adjourned for hearing until October 2012.
The case lingered for two months without progress as Justice Yadav’s counsel once again argued that an SLP was pending for hearing in the Supreme Court, and hence, the matter was further adjourned to 6 July, 2013.
The argument on framing of charges and Bansal’s discharge petition continued over the next few hearings before the trial court dismissed the discharge petition and fixed 12 August, 2013, as the date for framing of charges against the accused.
However, on that day, counsels for the accused sought three weeks to avail themselves of the option of challenging the order for framing of charges, which the CBI’s counsel opposed. The matter was adjourned until 27 August that year.
That day, Justice Yadav’s counsel argued that a petition challenging the order for framing of charges against all accused, including her, was pending before the HC for hearing and sought a deferment of the process for three weeks.
The CBI counsel opposed the move, claiming that the framing of charges should not affect the petition’s fate in the high court. The court again adjourned the matter in the “interest of justice”.
When the high court rejected the petition challenging the trial court order for framing of charges, the judge’s counsel moved another application seeking deferment for three weeks to move a petition before the Supreme Court to stay proceedings in the case in the trial court.
The matter lingered as Justice Yadav’s counsel persisted with the same application. However, as the Supreme Court dismissed the petition, the trial court finally framed charges against all accused on 18 January, 2014.
Another 11 years for acquittal
Trial in the 2008 cash-at-judge’s-door case started in February 2014 and ended only after 11 years and 243 hearings. In the process, the special CBI court examined as many as 89 prosecution witnesses and four witnesses from the side of the accused.
Having framed charges, the trial court summoned six prosecution witnesses— constable Gurvinder Singh, peon Amrik Singh, head constables Bahadur Singh and Satyabir Sharma, sub-inspector Joginder Singh and Chandigarh Police SHO Ramesh Chand Sharma for cross-examination to formally begin the trial proceedings on 15 February, 2014.
The case witnessed adjournments from the start as the counsels of Bansal and Gupta informed the court of their inability to conduct the cross-examination.
At the same time, counsels for the other accused argued that cross-examination from their side should be done after cross-examination of witnesses by the counsels of Bansal and Gupta, delaying the commencement of trial to March 2014.
The trial finally commenced and proceeded at a reasonable pace throughout 2014. Still, due to the absence of prosecution witnesses from proceedings while performing their official duties outside Chandigarh, the process slowed down in early 2015.
On one hearing date in November 2014, the special public prosecutor sought adjournment on the grounds of personal work, and two prosecution witnesses were discharged for the day without cross-examination.
Similarly, the CBI’s counsel had to seek adjournment in 2016 due to his oversight in not informing the agency headquarters about the date of the hearing, causing the court to discharge Justice Nirmaljit Kaur without recording her statement through video conferencing.
The agency’s counsel conceded his oversight in not informing the CBI headquarters to send the keys to the iron box containing the polythene bag in which the Rs 15 lakh cash was kept.
“A separate letter be sent to the SP, CBI, ACB II, New Delhi, to depute a special official/Pairvi Officer for producing all the relevant records of this case which are in possession of CBI, New Delhi, well in time i.e. one day before the date fixed, so that court work may not suffer,” special judge Shashi Bala Chauhan had observed in the order, and adjourned the matter to 17 May. Kaur’s examination was completed on the next day of hearing.
By September 2016, accused number one, Bansal, had fallen seriously ill, and he moved an application seeking exemption from personal appearance on grounds of admission to the ICU due to severe infection.
Bansal died in December 2016 and proceedings against him were dropped in February 2017.
Throughout 2017, adjournments were sought by the accused parties in the name of personal discomfort, illness or even absence of a prosecution witness, Surinder Singh Mand, for whom the judge released a bailable warrant.
The case further suffered delay on at least two occasions because the prosecution could not trace the notice sent to Mand before the agency’s counsel finally conceded that “no record pertaining to the notice referred during the cross-examination of PW-27, Shri S.S. Mand, is found available in the CBI record at Delhi”.
One hearing scheduled in December 2018 was adjourned as the court had not received notification of Sanjiv Joshi’s appointment as Special Judge, CBI Court.
The trial also lost one year between March 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was no movement in proceedings despite 17 hearings scheduled by the court. Before it could take off after one fruitful hearing in March 2021, the case got derailed further due to the second wave of the pandemic between April 2021 and September 2021.
The trial proceedings suffered further delay towards the end of 2022 when both the prosecution and defence sought repetitive adjournments, citing a long list of witnesses and the requirement of time to prepare response to statements.
The trial was also brought to a standstill as Justice Yadav requested the court to wait for the Punjab and Haryana High Court to give its verdict on a review petition filed by the CBI challenging the trial court’s order of 15 October, 2022, that denied it permission to re-examine some witnesses, as well as add new witnesses to the proceedings. While the HC had not stayed proceedings in the trial court, the judge insisted on waiting for the high court to dispose of the petition. The CBI’s plea was later rejected by the HC but it gave the agency liberty to seek legal remedy for the same objectives.
The CBI moved the high court again seeking permission to resummon witnesses examined earlier and bring more witnesses on record. The accused sought rejection of the petition, which was partially overruled by the high court, allowing the examination of six additional witnesses.
Nearly a month after the high court allowed the move, the arguments were over on 27 March this year, and judge Alka Malik delivered her verdict on 29 March, acquitting all accused.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)