Trapped govt official gives CBI the slip

MUMBAI: How did a highranking government official wriggle out of a corruption charge despite the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) having an apparently watertight case against him?
Three tape-recorded conversations and a plastic bag full of cash that changed hands in the presence of CBI men were apparently insufficient evidence against Dharampal, a joint general manager in the defence ministry''s canteen stores department in Mumbai.
The CBI allowed Dharampal to escape the long armof the law by dropping all charges against him due to a minor technicality.
Dharampal, the highestranking civilian official in his department, was chargesheeted for 12 counts of misconduct and irregularities, such as colluding with contractors and causing a loss to the exchequer.
But he got away with mild punishment—one of his increments was withheld.
Dharampal challenged the punishment in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). The government appointed R K Shetty to fight its case and his son R R Shetty, who is also a government lawyer, took up the matter.
According to records that were submitted to the court, Dharampal allegedly tried to bribe the younger Shetty, following which the anti-corruption wing of the CBI taped three phone conversations between R R Shetty and Dharampal in the presence of two independent witnesses.
The CBI tapes allegedly showed Dharampal asking Shetty to quote his price to weaken the case. On the morning of July 16, 2003, Shetty toldDharampal to pay him Rs 25,000.
The same evening, in a Bandra hotel, CBI officers caught Dharampal red-handed trying to pass on a plastic bag containing the money to the younger Shetty.
Dharampal was arrested and spent 48 hours in jail before he was released on bail by a CBI court. He was subsequently suspended from service.
However, when the case came up, Dharampal took the stand that it was R K Shetty who had been appointed by the government to appear before the CAT and not R R Shetty.
His argument was that he couldn''t be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act because he had not given money to a government servant, but a private citizen, since R K Shetty was the government lawyer for that particular case.
Strangely, this argument passed muster with the CBI legal counsel, who asked the investigative agency to withdraw the bribery case.
"Our legal advisors said R R Shetty was not the government lawyer and bribing a private person is not an offence," a CBI spokesperson told TOI. It filed a closure report and the court accepted it. CBI officers admit in private that the legal advice was "galling".
Sources said the Prevention of Corruption Act is so stringent that it even covers instances when a private citizen accepts a bribe on behalf of a government servant. R R Shetty, when contacted, expressed surprise that the case has been closed.
"I do not even know when the CBI has filed for closure," he said. Asked for a legal opinion, senior advocate Adhik Shirodkar told TOI that there were loopholes in the CBI''s summary closure.
"The logical question is, why should I give money to this lawyer if he is not fighting a case against me?" he asked. He said it should have been left to the courts to decide the merits of the case.
"The CBI should not have dropped the case in this fashion. Assuming Dharampal was trying to bribe ''a'' lawyer, and not ''the'' lawyer, it would still amount to contempt, if not corruption. You cannot shut out that possibility."