Misuse of official position, loss of funds in LCMA
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 5: High Court has refused to quash FIR against the official of LCMA and the contractor for misusing the official position by spending huge public exchequer on fuel and maintenance of mechanical devices for cleaning the Lake.
In 2000, Police Station, Vigilance Organization Kashmir, on the basis of a reliable information, registered the FIR against the officials of the LCMA which include the then Executive Engineer Mohammad Ramzan Bhat and the then Assistant Executive Engineer G L Chouraisa and the supplier Eapen Chakoo for misusing the public post and loss to the public exchequer.
As per the VoK the officers and officials of Mechanical Division, LCMA, by misuse of their official position and active connivance with each other, had shown huge amount expenditure on fuel and maintenance of mechanical devices engaged for weeding and dredging by fabricating records when actually this amount was not spent.
The FIR contains two sets of allegations, one pertaining to the amount spent on fuel and other pertaining to expenditure on maintenance of mechanical devices engaged for deweeding and dredging.
After conducting the investigation, a separate charge sheet relating to allegation regarding expenditure on account of fuel, was filed before the Special Judge, Anticorruption, Kashmir, Srinagar, whereas another chargesheet came to be filed before the same Court in respect of the allegations relating to expenditure on account of maintenance of devices engaged for deweeding and dredging.
The charge sheet against the petitioner and co-accused (Officials of LCMA) was placed before the trial court in 2005 and the charges against him were framed in 2009. The petitioner-accused appeared before the trial court after the filing of the charge sheet.
The petitioner-accused has filed the present petition seeking quashing of FIR in 2020 to which the court said, there is a delay of about 14 years in filing the present petition. “The petitioner has actively participated in the proceedings before the trial court for all these years and has, after waking up from deep slumber, approached this Court, without any iota of explanation for the delay as per his choice, caprice and whim”, Justice Sanjay Dhar said
Court also added that the prosecution evidence is almost complete and now late in the day, the petitioner-accused wants this Court to exercise its jurisdiction under Section 482 of Cr. P. C, which, in the facts and circumstances of the case, this Court would be reluctant to do.
“Thus, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the submissions made by the petitioner, the instant petition is dismissed as being highly belated. The petitioner is, however, at liberty to take all the contentions raised in the present petition before the court below at the time of final arguments”, court concluded.
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