Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 25: High Court has set-aside the conviction of Income Tax official and others ordered by CBU court and acquitted the appellants.
After hearing senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocate Veenu Gupta appearing for the appellant, Justice M K Hanjura set-aside the judgment and acquitted the appellants namely Sudershan Kumar, Division Clerk in CIT Jammu, Kishore Sharma, son of Diwan Chand, R S Mehta, son of Roop Singh, Sohan Singh, son of Ranjit Singh, Rajesh Kumar Sharma, son of Sansar Chand Sharma, Tilak Raj Sharma, son of Onkar Chand Sharma, Raj Kumar Dogra, son of Sanjhi Ram Dogra, Amit Pal Singh, son of Suraj Pal Singh, Shekhar Dhar, son of M K Dhar and Tulsi Thakur, son of Shiv Lal Thakur.
The CBI had booked these persons on the complaint about misappropriation of the refund amount which was due to various Income Tax assesses by opening fictitious bank accounts.
“The specimen handwritings/signatures of the accused/appellants in this case are alleged to have been obtained in the presence of civilians, who were the employees of banks/Insurance Companies. In this behalf, reference can usefully be made to the provisions of Sections 47 and 73 of the Evidence Act”, Justice Hanjura said.
“It has to be viewed and judged as to who can take the specimen handwriting/signatures for making comparison between the admitted and the questioned ones. The specimen handwriting/ signatures can be obtained by the court when some proceedings are pending before it. However, when no proceedings were pending before the court and the case was still under investigation and the same could have been obtained in the presence of the Magistrate or at least in presence of a Gazetted Officer so as to lend credence and credibility to the proceedings but this has not been done by the Investigating Agency”, High Court further said.
“Therefore, the process of obtaining specimen handwritings/ signatures of the accused/appellants by the investigating agency in the instant case is inappropriate and reflects adversely upon the manner in which the investigation of the case has been conducted which appears to be shabby and slippery”, High Court said.
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