New Delhi, Jan 9: The CBI director has been summoned by a special court to explain as to how some crucial documents in the multi-crore rupees Molarband and Dheerpur land scam involving ‘cholle-bhature' vendor Ashok Malhotra, have gone missing.
Special CBI Judge A K Mendiratta issued notice to the CBI director to appear before it on January 12, saying, “I am of the considered view that in the facts and circumstances, notice be issued to the director, CBI to appear in person to explain the circumstances in which the fact regarding the missing documents had been suppressed.”
The case pertains to Delhi Vidhan Sabha canteen's former contractor Ashok Malhotra, who was arrested in 2007 along with MCD and DDA officials for allegedly conspiring to acquire plots meant for resettlement of slum dwellers and subsequently selling them at exorbitant rates.
“The matter is of exceptional nature as the sensitive documents relating to the case have not been placed along with the charge sheet and are stated to be missing.
“The prosecution as such also needs to clarify if the missing documents have some relevance in the connected cases. The fact that the documents are missing has been suppressed by the prosecution before this court is disturbing,” the court said.
The fact of missing documents came to the court's notice only on November 28, 2011 when it was told by the CBI that the documents and the statements could not be filed in the court as the investigating officer (IO) of the case, Inspector D K Thakur, was arrested in a trap case.
The CBI also told the court that the case record was not handed over by Thakur to any other IO and the documents relied could not be recovered from his almirah.
“Such a crucial fact does not appear to have been brought to the notice of the court for a period of about 4 years, despite filing of the charge sheet on November 17, 2007. The case has been repeatedly adjourned and is pending for supply of copies for above four years,” Judge Mendiratta said.
The court also noted that “neither any FIR has been registered in respect of the missing documents nor any action taken report has been placed on record.”
It also noted the contention of the accused that CBI has filed about 15 charge sheets in which the probe appears to be interconnected and the documents relied upon may be common.
Malhotra was arrested on August 6, 2007 for allegedly conspiring with DDA officials to fraudulently acquire plots meant for resettlement of slum dwellers between 2000 and 2002.
Besides Malhotra, the CBI had also chargesheeted S N S Sidhu, Phillip Toppo, Sumer Chand Garg—all deputy directors of MCD and canteen manager Ravinder Singh Sandhu, Ram Chander Arora, Lal Mani, Sher Singh, Nanak Chand Khandelwal, businessman Ashok Jain and MCD clerk Atul Vashisth.
They are all charged with sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of a valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using a forged document as genuine) of the IPC and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
