No charges framed for 31 yrs, HC bins graft case against ex-engr

CUTTACK: The Orissa high court has quashed a complaint of misappropriation of funds against a retired govt engineer after finding no charges had been framed against him even 31 years after the state vigilance had registered a case.

The vigilance had registered a case against Nandakishore Pal on February 2, 1993. Pal was then a junior engineer. The FIR claimed he had allegedly misappropriated subsidy money of Rs 1,47,000 sanctioned to 49 beneficiaries in Raghunathpur block of Jagatsinghpur district for installing shallow point tube wells by producing fake cash memos for the purchase of materials and furnishing false completion certificates.

On August 18, 2014, a special vigilance court directed the vigilance department to frame charges against Pal for criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and fraud. Pal had challenged it in high court on September 18, 2014.

Discharging Pal, the single-judge bench of Justice Gourishankar Satapathy, in his Feb 27, order, stated, “If the system is unable to provide right to speedy trial and more particularly in this case, when the trial has not begun even after 31 years of the alleged incident by framing charges, it can be reasonably said that there is no ground for presuming the petitioner to have committed the offence.”

Justice Satapathy observed, “This court in the peculiar facts and circumstance of the case is constrained to consider that the charge sought to be brought against the petitioner appears to be groundless, especially when the trial would commence is eventually a guess and how much time it would require to complete the trial is uncertain. Accordingly, this court considers it fit to discharge the petitioner for commission of the offences under IPC.”

Responding to the HC verdict, Pal said, “A long ordeal of unfairness during almost the whole of my service period has finally ended and justice has prevailed.”

Pal retired as executive engineer at Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) on April 30, 2023. He has been re-engaged in the same post by Cuttack Municipal Corporation.

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