In a case alleging large-scale financial crime that has been committed by utilising the fraudulent sanction of the Government, the Delhi High Court strongly asserted that the implications of the possible existence of a syndicate of this nature, operating with the fraudulent sanction of the Government to exploit vulnerable youth who are desperately in search for employment, is a crime that strikes at the very root of society’s conscience.
Emphasising that the crimes alleged to be attributable to the petitioner are significantly more heinous than those allegations which have been levelled against the co-accused, the High Court ruled that a right to bail cannot be said to accrue merely on account of a co-accused being enlarged on bail, in the absence of careful consideration and comparison of the role of each co-accused.
The Court noted that, largely, the allegations against the co-accused were that he lured the victims and facilitated their meeting with co-conspirators, as well as accepted payments from them, while the role attributable to the petitioner was that of the act of forgery of official government documents, right from training certificates to medical fitness certificates carrying the sanction of the Indian Railways, asides from allegations of impersonation of government officials.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Ajay Digpaul observed that there is ample evidence on record, right from numerous witness testimonies to the recovery of instruments allegedly used to commit forgery as well as the forged documents themselves, along with an FSL confirmation of a match, i.e., that the recovered stamp/seal was superimposed on the forged documents handed over to the victims.
The Single Judge therefore discarded the argument that there is a lack of financial transactions linkable to the petitioner, observing that the status report on record clearly indicates that around 44 lakhs worth of cash deposits were made to various accounts belonging to the petitioner during the period when the alleged crimes were reported to have been committed.
The Bench pointed out that a long incarceration period of around 2.5 years, as lengthy incarceration is not a per se pass for the grant of bail de hors consideration of other mitigating factors, such as the accused’s ability to influence witnesses and hamper the trial. Considering that the trial is currently at a pre-charge stage, the Bench denied bail to the petitioner, who has sought parity with the co-accused, who was enlarged on bail on account of his age of 68 years and suffering from significant heart ailments.
Briefly, a 78-year-old ex-serviceman who had served the army for 18 years came across one Sivaraman, residing at an MP quarter in New Delhi, where Sivaraman boasted of being closely associated with various Ministers and talked about his aid in facilitating employment in the Railways for job seekers in exchange for monetary gratification. The complainant alleged that he and three jobseekers were persuaded to pay Rs. 33.20 lacs into Sivaraman’s bank account in furtherance of their employment with the Indian Railways. Thereafter, other job seekers transferred a total of Rs. 60.20 lacs into the account of Vikas Rana, who claimed to be an IRIS Officer. Later, another 25 unemployed candidates reached out to the complainant to avail employment in the Railways, and paid the so-called facilitation charges to the accused persons, amounting to a sum of 2.63 crores in toto.
On receipt of these charges, the candidates were taken for a medical examination at Railway Central Hospital, and then taken to Baroda House to collect their joining orders for training, after which they were subjected to bogus job training of counting trains. Later, upon realising the fraud that had been played, the complainant attempted to call the accused persons, who first evaded the calls, and then gave threats of murder and harm. This led to the filing of the FIR for offences punishable under Sections 170, 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 472, 473, 474 and 120B of the IPC, and the chargesheet on record reflects that forged appointment letters, joining letters, medical fitness certificates and identity cards bearing the insignia of Northern Railways were handed over to the candidates, and they were led to believe that they had been duly appointed and would soon receive their posting orders.
Thereafter, the petitioner was arrested along with a huge cash, a fake seal and forged documents. The Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) noted the gravity of the allegations and the appearance of the fake job syndicate having “deeper roots”, wherein the role of the petitioner was that of a main conspirator, and denied bail to the petitioner. The ASJ noted that the large-scale commission of economic offences, where the number of victims is difficult to count with certainty, needs to be deprecated. The matter is presently at the pre-charge stage with respect to the progression of the petitioner’s trial, and accordingly, a bail application has been sought.
Appearances:
Advocates Aakash Kumar, Abhijeet Singh, Varun Jain and Abhay Goswami, for the Petitioner
Advocates Raghuinder Verma, Aditya Vikram Singh, and Ninad Dogra, for the Respondent
