HC allows investigation to continue against former ACB chief, officers

Raipur: A division bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court has allowed the investigation to continue in an FIR registered against former chief of Chhattisgarh Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), two superintendents of police, investigating officer, and others of the anti-corruption body.The court passed this order while modifying its interim order of March 3, 2021 but directed that the ACB officials shall not be arrested in connection with the case during the investigation process and posted the matter for July next year.The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Rakesh Mohan Pandey, passed the order while modifying the interim stay on the investigation against the ACB officials who had filed a petition in the high court challenging the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court of Bilaspur. The CJM court had asked the Civil Lines police to file an FIR against the ACB officials and start an investigation based on the application of contractor Pawan Agrawal.Agrawal had filed a complaint in the CJM court against the then ACB chief Mukesh Gupta, SP Rajnesh Singh, EOW SP Arvind Kujur, DSP Ashok Kumar Joshi, and other officers, accusing them of preparing fake documents by tampering with government documents to create a fake FIR.On December 24, 2019, the CJM court directed the Civil Lines police, Bilaspur, to register a case against the concerned officers and initiate an investigation.In compliance with CJM court order, police filed FIR under Sections 120 (B), 420, 467, 468, 471, 472, 213, 218, 166, 167, 382, 380 of the IPC and started investigatons. Meanwhile, the police officers obtained a stay from the court.The ACB officials had justified the complaints made against Bilaspur's Kharang division executive engineer Alok Kumar Agrawal and other officers in connection with alleged irregularities in the 15 tenders involving crores of rupees and took action against them in 2014-15. Senior counsel Kishore Bhaduri and counsel Shreyansh Agrawal submitted to the division bench of the high court, adding that the EE had no role in the tender process.The counsels further submitted that the chief engineer and superintending engineer had approved the tenders for eligible contractors and an elimination report was prepared by the ACB officers in 2018 after finding no foul play in the tender process. The report has also been presented in court, the counsels submitted.The counsels further argued that the petitioner Pawan Kumar Agrawal had neither participated in the tender process nor was any tender allotted to him. The FIR, based on which action was taken by the ACB officers, is not registered in the valid FIR book maintained by the state agency ACB-EOW Raipur. Contrary to the provisions of the law, fake FIRs have been prepared, said the counsels.After hearing the counsels, the high court removed the interim stay from the investigation process, directed the resumption of the investigation, and posted the matter for July 4, 2023. The court also clarified that there should be no arrest of the police officers.
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