NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has transferred a Special Judge (PC Act) from the Rouse Avenue Court to Rohini (North-West Delhi) after the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) registered a case against his ahlmad (record keeper), Mukesh Kumar, over allegations of bribery in bail matters.
On May 16, the ACB booked Kumar under Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), alleging that he had demanded and received bribes from accused persons to facilitate their release on bail.
However, Kumar has strongly refuted the allegations and claimed he has been falsely implicated by ACB officers as part of a larger conspiracy aimed at targeting the judge. He has accused ACB Joint Commissioner Madhur Verma and Assistant Commissioner of Police Jarnail Singh of attempting to settle personal scores with the judge for passing unfavourable orders against the agency.
In a petition filed before the Delhi High Court, Kumar alleged that the case is “a grave attack on judicial independence” and called the FIR “a false and malicious FIR registered against the petitioner with the sole objective of arm-twisting the judiciary and using the petitioner as a tool to threaten the judge, and to compel the petitioner to help the vengeful officers of Anti-Corruption Branch to take retaliatory action against the judge because of their discomfort with judicial orders being passed against them.”
The petition also alleged that after the judge flagged several loopholes in ACB investigations, court staff began facing threats of false cases. Kumar, under pressure, had even requested a transfer from the special judge’s courtroom.
He further sought a departmental enquiry against Joint Commissioner Verma and ACP Singh, accusing them of “underhand dealings, corruption, blackmailing, criminal intimidation, abuse of office, misuse of state machinery, forgery, and fabrication of documents, abduction intimidation of witnesses, and destruction of official record.”
The petition, seeking either the quashing of the FIR or transfer of the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was listed before Justice Amit Sharma on May 20. The single-judge bench directed the State to file a status report or response by May 29.
Kumar also told a trial court that the FIR was registered shortly after the Special Judge, with whom he was posted, issued a show-cause notice to Joint Commissioner Verma asking why a contempt reference should not be initiated against him before the High Court. Notably, before the FIR was registered, the ACB had approached the Law Secretary of the Delhi government in January seeking permission to initiate a probe against the judge.
The agency also submitted what it claimed was incriminating material against both the judge and Kumar to the HC on the administrative side. In February, the Delhi High Court responded that the agency was free to investigate the complaints but declined to permit any action against the judge at that stage, citing lack of sufficient material.
“Accordingly, presently there is no requirement to grant permission qua the said Judicial Officer. However, the investigating agency is at liberty to carry on with the investigation with respect to the complaints received by them,” the High Court stated in its reply. Kumar’s anticipatory bail plea was dismissed by the trial court on May 22, although the court directed the ACB to adhere to Section 41 and 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (corresponding to Sections 35(1)/(2) and 35(3)/(6) of the BNSS) before effecting any arrest.