Chandigarh Toilet ‘scam’: Discharge pleas of accused dismissed

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh November 22

Jagjit Singh, Special Judge, CBI Court, Chandigarh, has dismissed the discharge applications of Jimmy K Subawalla and Bishwadeep Dutt, directors of Selvel Media Services Limited, and Myesa Ganesh of Outdoor Communication in a six-year-old alleged scam related to the maintenance of public toilets of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.

The accused have filed the applications under Section 227 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) on the ground that they had been falsely implicated in the case and the CBI had failed to produce any conspiracy.

The counsel for the accused argued that a bare reading of the chargesheet does not disclose any criminal offence. No specific allegations have been made against the accused in the FIR and the chargesheet. The action of the Chandigarh MC was genuine and nothing wrong was done by the accused. The action of the applicants or their company in no way caused any harm to the MC. No internal inquiry was ever conducted by the civic body. Thus, the accused deserved to be discharged.

The public prosecutor for the CBI stated that at the stage of framing of charge, the court was not required to go into the intricacies of the case and rather, only a prima facie case was to be seen.

There is sufficient evidence on file to prove the criminal conspiracy, cheating and offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act by different accused. There is enough evidence of the witnesses and, thus, at this stage, there is no merit in the applications. Any defence of the accused can be seen when the evidence is produced and at present their applications deserve dismissal.

After hearing the arguments, the court dismissed the applications saying law is well settled that at the time of framing of charge only a prima facie case is to be seen and the court is not required to see as to whether the evidence on file will ultimately lead to the conviction of the accused or not.

The CBI had registered the case against the accused in 2014 for allegedly causing loss to the Municipal Corporation. The case was registered against the then Superintending Engineer and officials of the company entrusted with the responsibility to maintain public toilets, under Sections 120-B and 420 of the IPC for cheating, criminal conspiracy and Sections 13 (2) read with 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI filed the charge sheet in the case in October 2016. In the chargesheet, the CBI alleged that the then Superintending Engineer had exempted licence fee and advertisement fee/tax by way of two allotment letters to the company for which there was no approval from the competent authority. Based on the allotment letters, the company did not give the advertisement fee to the MC.