CHANDIGARH: Former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Nirmal Yadav was on Saturday acquitted in a 17-year-old corruption case.
Citing the prosecution’s failure to prove charges against them, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here acquitted retired Justice Yadav and three other accused, Ravinder Singh Bhasin, Rajiv Gupta and Nirmal Singh, in the case. One of the accused, Sanjiv Bansal, the former Additional Advocate General of Haryana, passed away during the trial.
The order was pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge, Justice Alka Malik of the Special CBI court. Advocate Vishal Garg Narwana, representing retired Justice Nirmal Yadav, said, "A false narrative was set that money was sent as a bribe, but there was nothing like that and the court acquitted everyone today."
The final arguments in the case were heard in the court in Chandigarh on Thursday.
Talking to the media after the court verdict in which she was acquitted, Justice Yadav said that she has full faith in the judiciary and the verdict is the victory of the truth.
The prosecution had cited 84 witnesses with 69 being examined. Later, the high court allowed the prosecution to examine 12 more witnesses in the case.
On August 13, 2008, a bag containing Rs 15 lakh in cash was mistakenly delivered to the residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. It was alleged that the cash was actually meant to be delivered at the residence of Justice Nirmal Yadav, another sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court at the time.
A peon Amrik Singh at Justice Kaur’s residence then told the Chandigarh Police that on August 13, 2008, around 8.30 pm, Parkash Ram arrived at Kaur’s house with a plastic bag and told Singh that “papers had come from Delhi for Justice Kaur”. Singh took the bag inside, and upon Justice Kaur’s instructions, he opened it to find currency notes inside. The police were called and they detained Parkash Ram and seized the bag full of cash.
On August 16, 2008, the Chandigarh Police registered a case and on August 26, the administration transferred the investigation to the CBI. After completing the investigation, the CBI filed a charge sheet on April 18, 2011 in which it was stated that the bag was intended for Justice Yadav, but due to the similarity in names, it mistakenly reached Justice Kaur’s residence.
Justice Yadav went on leave after her name figured in the scandal. She was subsequently transferred to the Uttarakhand High Court from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
An internal panel of the Supreme Court and the CBI cleared Justice Nirmaljit Kaur who was transferred to the Rajasthan High Court in July 2012. She returned to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2018, and retired in 2021.
In 2009, the CBI filed a closure report saying that no case was made out. The CBI court rejected the closure report and ordered the agency to re-investigate the case.
Then the CBI held that Justice Yadav had committed an offence punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, while the court had also ordered the framing of charges against Bansal, Gupta and Singh under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The CBI filed a charge sheet in the case on March 3, 2011, a day before Justice Yadav was to retire. The agency had claimed in the charge sheet that on August 13, 2008, Ravinder Singh was supposed to send Rs 15 lakh to Justice Yadav and he gave the money to Sanjiv Bansal in Delhi who was instructed to deliver it to her in Chandigarh. However, Bansal called his wife to send the amount from their residence to Justice Yadav’s house through his munshi, Parkash Ram. As he was given a packet by Bansal’s wife to deliver it to “Nirmal Ji”, he inadvertently reached Justice Nirmaljit Kaur’s residence instead.
On January 18, 2014, the special CBI court framed charges against the accused. The public prosecutor Narendra Singh argued that the prosecution had proved the case beyond a shadow of doubt. However, Narwana, counsel for Justice Yadav, claimed that the CBI had falsely implicated her in the case. Notably, the CBI had earlier filed a closure report in the case. However, the court ultimately acquitted all the accused due to lack of evidence.