Four acquitted by CBI court in graft case

Thu, Nov 5 06:11 AM

The CBI court on Wednesday acquitted four accused in a corruption case dating back to 2000. The court acquitted Jaspal Kaur, an employee of the Telephone Revenue Accounts (TRA) department, Surinder Kumar, a labourer of the department and two other persons Pratibha Jaiswal and Raj Kumar Jaiswal.

The case was registered against the four in July 2000 under Sections 420, 467, 471 of the IPC and various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Calling it a multicrore scam involving various employees of the Telecom department, the CBI had said that between January and December 1998, Jaspal had connived with the other three accused and made fake entries in the computerised disconnection list maintained in the accounts office of TRA. It was alleged that Jaspal Kaur showed in the accounts that fortnightly payment of bills had been received against STD pay phones in the name of Pratibha Jaiswal and Raj Kumar Jaiswal, whereas no payment was deposited by the subscriber, the CBI had said.

The CBI had also said a fraud of Rs 44,7815 had been detected in which the accused had opened STD, PCOs free of cost and showed fake payment in accounts.

While the chargesheet in the case was filed in 2003, the CBI Special Court of Darshan Singh today acquitted all the four accused in the case for lack of evidence.

The defence had pleaded that Jaspal was the whistleblower in the case and it was she who had brought the scam to the notice of higher authorities.

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