CHENNAI: A special court for CBI cases has acquitted former top officer of revenue intelligence C Rajan of all bribery charges levelled against him by the Central Agency for want of substantial evidence and failure to prove that he demanded and accepted a bribe from a private company to defreeze NRI accounts.
The cumulative analysis of the evidence available shows that the “contradictions” that “glare on the face” and go to the very root of this case cannot be ignored and the prosecution has “miserably failed” to prove the guilt of the accused, said CBI special court judge AK Mehbub Ali Khan in an order issued on Friday.
“This court is of the considered opinion that there is absolutely no material to show that there was any demand or acceptance of a bribe by A1 (Rajan) or by A2 (Murugesan) and that the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of both of them under Sections 120-B IPC r/w Sections 7 and 13(2) r/w 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act,” the judge said.
He pronounced that Rajan and Murugesan, the driver, are not guilty of the offences and are acquitted under Section 248 (1) of the CrPC and the bail bonds executed by them shall stand cancelled. Rajan, while serving as additional director general of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in the Chennai zone, was arrested by the CBI along with his driver M Murugesan on March 6, 2012, for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 10 lakh and an Apple iPad and accepting Rs 2 lakh and the iPad as an advance payment. Subsequently, they were remanded to judicial custody.
The CBI had charged them with accepting the bribe to defreeze the NRI accounts of Super King Myatzin, an NRI businessman, whose accounts were frozen after DRI officials raided his firm Hansum India Electronics for under-declaration of the value of goods.
During the trial, Rajan, a media-friendly officer, contended that he was framed by the CBI under influence of certain corporate firms since he had unearthed a huge amount of duty evasion by the corporate firms.